Da Matta’s Debut Alters Expectations
Cristiano da Matta stunned the CART FedEx Championship Series with his debut performance for Arciero-Wells Racing at the recent Grand Prix of Miami.
Da Matta, hoping to qualify between 10th and 15th on the oval, instead qualified sixth--the highest ever (by seven positions) for a Toyota-powered entry. He also had the quickest time in the pre-race warmup.
Da Matta was running eighth in the March 21 race when a rear tire was punctured and he had to make an extra pit stop with 12 laps remaining; he finished 14th.
Cal Wells III, owner of Rancho Santa Margarita-based Arciero-Wells, called it “a vindication, of sorts, for our Toyota program and demonstrated the competency of Toyota’s efforts.”
“I don’t want to say it changed our expectations [or timeline], but it modified our test plan, our entire approach and shifted our focus to chassis development instead of engine development. My paranoia is that we’ll be expected to do that every event.”
It was a benchmark effort for the fourth-year program, showing the engine’s potential on an oval, which has typically not been its strength.
“I’m not sure anyone was expecting that [qualifying effort]. I wasn’t,” da Matta said. “When you’re not expecting something that good, and it happens, it turns into a very important thing. It’s a day that will be remembered for the rest of my life.”
If not for a flat tire, da Matta might have matched the team’s previous best finish, a fifth by Max Papis last year in Houston.
Unlike in Houston, da Matta’s performance in Florida wasn’t predicated on attrition.
“I don’t think anyone should be too disappointed about the result,” da Matta said. “We were so close and in the last 15 laps, we lost it. I think everyone [on the team] was thinking, ‘Now we know what we have in our hands.’ This was the first round--we have 19 more to keep improving and show our work.”
Starting near the front changes everything.
“If you’re in the top 10 in a reasonable car, it’s tough to get lapped,” Wells said. “If you can stay in touch, stay on the same straightaway, stay within three-quarters of a mile [of the leader], you can [win]. When you’re running in traffic, working just as hard as you can to stay on the lead lap, good car or bad car, you’re going to struggle.”
Arciero-Wells’ entries were 1-2 in the pre-race warmup--Scott Pruett was second. Pruett started 22nd because of an electrical problem during qualifying. He ran as high as 14th but finished 22nd. When he scraped the wall on Lap 79, he suffered a bruised right ankle.
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Dan Gurney and Mario Andretti will be grand marshals for the Grand Prix of Long Beach on April 18. The best CART Series finish for Gurney’s team, Santa Ana-based All American Racers, is 12th, but he is optimistic driver Alex Barron will improve on that in Long Beach.
“I’m very much looking forward to the race and being in the thick of things near the front,” Gurney said.
Barron tested very fast at the road course in Sebring, Fla., which translates well to the Long Beach layout.
“[The new chassis] has more potential than what we’ve been running before, and as it happened, Toyota’s engine efforts are starting to pay off at the same time,” Gurney said. “We’ve got a car that’s very good and a competitive engine.”
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Shigeaki Hattori of Laguna Niguel has had a rough start. He missed the Grand Prix of Miami after a crash earlier in the week. Hattori, a rookie driver for Bettenhausen Motorsports, sustained a concussion and jaw injury in a crash March 19. CART rules prohibit drivers with concussions from racing for seven days.
Hattori, who replaced Helio Castro-Neves (Hogan Racing), also crashed early in the Spring Training test sessions, Feb. 2-4 in Florida.
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Dick Simon Racing was the first entrant into the 83rd Indianapolis 500, as Dick Simon, the Dana Point team owner, hand-delivered his entry.
“It shows we’re back, and we’re ready to go,” said Rich Simon, Dick’s son and the team manager/crew chief.
“Traditionally, we were always first. We may not win all the races. That’s the one thing we may lack. There’s only one winner in the race. But there are other things that make you a winner. We want to have the first entry. We want to be the first car on the track, the first car to qualify.
“In racing, it’s always about being the fastest, the first, the best.”
Simon, returning to open-wheel racing as an owner for the first time since 1995, watched his driver, Stephan Gregoire, finish 16th in the season-opening event, the TransWorld Indy 200, at Walt Disney World Speedway. They moved into the top 10 in the MCI WorldCom 200 in Phoenix, finishing 10th, two laps off the pace.
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Jeff Ward, a San Juan Capistrano resident, changed teams between races, and he has excelled for both. Ward finished third in Orlando for ISM Racing, then finished second in Phoenix for Pagan Racing.
The next race is May 1 in Charlotte, N.C.
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Jaques Lazier, a Chapman graduate, was to make his Indy Racing League debut driving for his father, Bob Lazier, in Phoenix. Jaques is younger brother of 1996 Indy 500 winner Buddy Lazier.
But a not-so-funny thing happened to Jaques on the way to the race--he lost an engine in the morning warmup and did not start.