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Friday, June 15
Fittipaldi among those to test at MIS
By Christian Fittipaldi
Special to ESPN.com
We are approaching the heart of the season now with six races in seven weekends. But before all of that, I was one of five drivers who tested earlier this week at Michigan International Speedway in preparation for the Michigan 500 and Marlboro 500 at California Speedway.
In order to reduce the speeds, CART organized a test of new engine and aerodynamic changes that have been mandated for "performance containment." The test was to try out the changes and make sure they slowed the cars down and still left the car with good handling.
|  | | Christian Fittipaldi was among the five drivers who tested new rules at Michigan. |
Basically the changes included reducing the engine boost from 37 inches to 36 to slow the cars down. On the aerodynamic side, they added three inches to the backplate on the Handford MkI rear wing, making it now nine inches total in an effort to reduce the downforce and improve the handling of the car in traffic. They also eliminated any bodywork 11 inches back from the differential for the rest of the season, so it will be harder for teams to come up with new parts that could get some of the speed back.
The other drivers were Max Papis, Gil de Ferran, Dario Franchitti and Bryan Herta. We ran two sessions where the plan was to run alone the first part of the day and then in traffic the second part. We had a couple of single-file drafts in the second session to check out how the changes would affect the draft in terms of whether it unsettled the cars.
I was pretty happy with the feel of the car. We tried a lot of different things on track. We made the car understeer, oversteer, slide on four wheels and run empty and with a full tank and were pretty pleased with the new changes.
I was expecting the draft to be a lot bigger, but it wasn't because the rear wing was bigger. I was expecting a lot of drag, but it really surprised me. There is still a lot of draft. Gil set the fastest time of 224, and I think he had a tow. I think he had a big tow. I was the second fastest with a high 222, which is more than 10 mph slower than we ran there last year. The other four ran in the 222 range, which is probably more realistic.
I think the race will be similar to previous years, but we will have less speed, which is good. Basically the car has the same handling but with lower speeds. It's pretty impressive that it is a year later but they still managed to pull the speeds down rather than just build on the speeds from last year, which would have been impractical.
In the past two weeks, I have been in the Detroit area three times. Before the test, I was asked to be the presenter at the induction of my uncle, Emerson Fittipaldi, into the Hall of Fame in Detroit. I initially planned to go back to Michigan over the weekend for the Kmart 400, but then the test at MIS was planned, I would have basically be gone from home for two weeks until after the Portland race, so I decided not to go to the Kmart 400.
After the Detroit race, I am going to fly to Los Angeles with Paul (Newman, car owner) to watch him film "The Road to Perdition." I've never experienced anything like that, so it should be pretty interesting. I know Paul as a friend and racer, but not as an actor. After spending a few days in Los Angeles, I'm going straight to Portland on Wednesday, which is one day earlier than usual because I am going to speak at the annual Boy Scouts Breakfast early, early Thursday morning. The proceeds from the breakfast give 5,000 less fortunate kids an opportunity to get involved with the Boy Scouts and benefit from the guidance.
Like I said, this is the "heart" of the season for us and I hope we can put together some good races. We have the potential if we can just get to the checkered flag without any major things happening.
Kmart Toyota driver Christian Fittipaldi provides a diary for ESPN.com throughout the CART season. You can check out Christian's web site at http://Fittipaldionline.com. Send this story to a friend | Most sent stories
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