MONTERREY, Mexico -- Cristiano da Matta spent the winter wondering if he could keep the momentum his Newman-Haas Racing team built in winning the last two races of 2001.

He had no need to worry.

The diminutive Brazilian overcame some late-race frustration Sunday to successfully defend his Monterrey Grand Prix title and become the first CART FedEx Series driver to win three straight races since Juan Montoya in 1999.

	Cristiano da Matta dominated on the way to his second consecutive Monterrey Grand Prix victory.

"The whole Newman-Haas team had a good offseason and we were really anxious to come into the first race and see if we could keep it going," da Matta said. "We put a lot of pressure on ourselves and it's good to get this off our back and know after five months we can still do it."

Da Matta ran a strong race Sunday on the 2.104-mile, 12-turn course in downtown Fundidora Park, but ran into two problems during the 85-lap event.

First, he collided with Shinji Nakano on lap 38 while trying to lap Nakano and Bruno Junqueira.

"I made a big mistake and tried to pass two lapped cars and got off line," he explained. "It was too exciting and I lost a little piece of the front wing, but the car didn't feel any different."

A combination of running faster than most of his competitors on nearly every lap on the slick racing surface and perfect pit strategy helped da Matta's Toyota-powered Lola to a lead of 18.521 seconds on lap 57.

Struggling to lap the slower cars of Michael Andretti and Adrian Fernandez, though, da Matta's lead steadily diminished as Dario Franchitti's Honda-Reynard charged back into contention.

"Adrian and Michael were doing their own race and you don't want to go a lap down, but they were running about two seconds a lap slower than I was," da Matta said. "I could see my lead shrink and it was very frustrating.

"I had that close call with Nakano before that and I didn't want to get off line again."

By the time Franchitti made his final pit stop on lap 74, the lead had been cut to under 5 seconds. Da Matta made his last stop on lap 77 and, as he left the pits, Tony Kanaan's car spun and tapped Tora Takagi's from behind, bringing out the second caution flag of the race.

Takagi continued and was between the two leaders when the green flag came back out with three laps remaining. Takagi ignored repeated requests from CART to move out of the way, Franchitti couldn't get past and da Matta drove off to his fifth career victory, beating the runner-up by 1.679-seconds -- about 10 car lengths.

The winner averaged 90.544 mph.

"I think our run at the end was spoiled by Takagi," Franchitti said. "We could have given da Matta a good run. I was just disgusted by what he did. CART needs to do something about that kind of situation."

Wally Dallenbach, returning as CART's chief steward after a year in retirement, said he had warned Takagi to let Franchitti and third-place Christian Fittipaldi go by and had also talked with Takagi's team owner Derrick Walker.

"It's definitely an open issue," Dallenbach said. "We're not going to do anything tonight, but we're going to take a long, hard look at it. I talked to the team and they know how I feel about it."

Franchitti was happy, though, with CART's new rule eliminating fuel restrictions and allowing the drivers to race all out for the entire race.

"I really enjoyed this," he said. "We were absolutely flat out all the way and it was magic. It's the way we're supposed to race."

Christian Fittipaldi, da Matta's teammate, wound up third, followed by local favorite Michel Jourdain, in his first drive for Team Rahal and the best of the three Mexicans in the race Sunday.

The race got off to a rocky start when rookie Townsend Bell tried to pass both former champion Jimmy Vasser and Kenny Brack on the third turn of the race, igniting a multicar crash that ended the day for all three drivers and caused lesser damaged to several other cars.

"I guess he thought he could win the race on that first lap," Vasser said of Bell. "If Kenny wasn't there, Bell would have blown off the track. So I went to the outside of them and I think someone backed into me.

"There was no way (Bell) was going to make that move stick. He'll learn from it, but it's unfortunate for guys like Brack and myself since we will be running for the championship all year."

Fernandez, one of the top sports figures in Mexico, started out front and led the first 14 laps before being passed for the top spot by Alex Tagliani. Fernandez fell out of contention and wound up a lap behind in 14th.

Tagliani also slipped back after the early going, but held on for fifth place.