Win a Honda S2000!
Play The CART Challenge powered by Honda!
|
|
Friday, February 23
Andretti set with new package for 2001
By Jack Arute
Special to ESPN.com
It seems like just yesterday that Michael Andretti was starting his first CART race some 15 miles away from Las Vegas Motor Speedway. In 1983, Caesar's Palace hosted the CART FedEx Series on a road course constructed in one of the casino's massive parking lots.
A lot has changed for the 37-year-old second-generation driver since then -- a disappointing year in Formula One, 40 CART victories, 32 poles and only one CART championship.
|  | | With a new package behind him -- team, engine and chassis -- Michael Andretti expects big things in 2001. |
Andretti is CART's all-time lap leader (over 6,000 laps led) and has been the series runner-up for the championship five times ('86, '87, '90, '92 and '96), but that lone championship must be equally gratifying and frustrating.
Outside of ageless Roberto Moreno, Andretti is the series' oldest driver. And he is certainly the circuit's most successful active racer. Unlike other superstar athletes that overstay, Andretti proved last season with wins in Japan and Toronto that he is still a threat to win his second championship.
It is a refreshed Andretti that has been testing this off season. He is with a new operation, Team Motorola. He also switches from Ford power to Honda, and from Lola to Reynard.
While many of his peers recently tested at Laguna Seca, Andretti and owner Barry Green tested on the road course at Homestead-Miami Speedway with one of Green's other two drivers, Dario Franchitti.
"We went through a lot of setups and learned a lot of things," Andretti said. "We're not exactly where we want to be."
Andretti wants to be the quickest. He wants to be the best, damn his teammates. Andretti's style is aggressive, and yet as he approaches 40, it has become tempered. He is a student of his car's performance. Not only does he want his car to work; he wants to understand why it works with a particular set-up.
The CART season kicks off at a brand-new track -- the 2.1-mile, 12-turn road circuit at Fundidora Park in Monterrey, Mexico on March 11. Outside of some ceremonial laps run by Michel Jourdain Jr. and Jimmy Vasser, The Monterrey Grand Prix presents teams with a blank page.
"We'll run some computer simulations to get an idea what should work in Mexico," Andretti said. "But the four practice sessions will be where we see what works."
It's a perfect scenario for Andretti.
He's a quick study. Few drivers pick up the nuances a new track presents quicker. When Andretti returned from his F1 sojourn several years ago, his first race was at Surfer's Paradise in Australia. Despite running the track for the very first time, with a new chassis (Reynard) and new team (Target Team Ganassi), he won.
When Swift chassis came onto the scene several years back, it was Andretti that delivered the American chassis maker its first victory -- on the mile-and-a-half Miami track.
Early reports from Mexico indicate that while technically challenging, the course is non-traditional.
"The circuit is a very interesting design," Vasser said. "Its going to be very interesting to see the different lines and styles drivers will use to attack this course."
Attack. That's right up Andretti's alley. He attacks every course -- oval and road course -- with a knife-edge approach that leaves many thinking he's near disaster. But like few others, Andretti's mastery most often leaves him on the winning side of the equation.
 Send this story to a friend | Most sent stories
|
|
|
|
