Start your engines!
Play RPM.ESPN Stock Car Challenge!
Win a Honda S2000!
Play The CART Challenge powered by Honda!
|
|
Friday, August 31
Tagliani fastest in practice
Associated Press
| |  | | | Tagliani |
VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- Alex Tagliani is feeling the
confidence flowing these days.
The Canadian driver, who has scored points in six consecutive
CART races, posted the fastest lap Friday, the first day of
practice for the Vancouver Molson Indy.
His 104.713 mph trip -- 1 minute, 1.230 seconds -- around the
1.781-mile, 12-turn temporary street circuit came on the last lap
of the day and barely beat CART FedEx Series points leader Helio
Castroneves, whose 104.359 (1:01.438) also came as the checkered
waved.
"We put on our last set of tires nine minutes before the end,"
Tagliani said. "It's hard to get a clean lap because of the
traffic, but we got lucky just before the end."
Even before that quick lap, though, Tagliani was running among
the leaders, something that has become commonplace of late.
"The Players team has been very consistent in the last seven
races," the second-year CART driver said. "Every time we get to a
racetrack, the car is good right off the trailer.
"Everybody on the team is more confident and that allows us to
push more on the track, and this is a very difficult track."
The circuit that winds through Pacific Place and the Concord
Place development at the edge of downtown Vancouver is tightly
lined by concrete barriers and has plenty of bumps where manhole
covers have been filled with concrete.
"This is a track that is really tough every year," said
Castroneves, who would love to add the single point for winning the
pole on Saturday to his current five-point lead over Kenny Brack.
"Turn five is a corner we go through flag out, and the bumpiness
on turn six are just a couple of the places that make it difficult,
very difficult."
Roberto Moreno, whose 104.243 was bumped back to third by the
late fast laps of Tagliani and Castroneves, said, "It's a good
challenge. Whoever makes the right adjustments, things get
better."
With the fast times of the top 13 drivers separated by less than
one second, Gil de Ferran, Castroneves' teammate and third in the
season standings, trailing by just 11 points, was fourth at
104.194, followed by Cristiano da Matta at 103.365, Brack at
103.572 and Patrick Carpentier, another Canadian and Tagliani's
teammate, at 103.525.
Both Team Player's drivers have had some success in recent weeks
after suffering through slow, difficult starts.
"There's no secret," Tagliani said. "We didn't do anything
special. We just had a lot of bad luck. We didn't just flick a
switch, but the team is confident and consistency is what we were
missing at the beginning of the season."
Carpentier, who won his first CART race in July at Michigan with
a late-race assist from Tagliani, who gave him some unintentional
drafting help, said, "Obviously Alex has a very good setup and
we'll see what is helping him fly on this track. It's quite
fantastic to have both Team Player's cars in the top 10 on
Friday."
Paul Tracy, the only other Canadian in the field and the
defending race winner, was well off the pace in 19th after posting
a fast lap of 102.505.
 Send this story to a friend | Most sent stories
|
|
|
|
