2003 CART - MILWAUKEE

R6 OF 19, MAY 31, 2003, MILWAUKEE

SCHEDULE

• Race: Sat night, 8 pm, 250 miles, 250 laps
• Qualifying: Fri night, 8.30 pm
• Practice: Thu night, 8 pm

COURSE

• Milwaukee Mile
• world's oldest permanent track
• 1.032 mile oval
• 1.3 million watts of lighting for the night race
• 2002 winner: Tracy, Honda
• 2003 pole: Fernandez, Honda, 22.176s

QUALIFYING: TAGLIANI ON POLE
Alex Tagliani will start from pole after the Final qualifying session on Friday night was washed out. The starting gird is based on Friday practice times.
TAGLIANI: " .. The winds were fluctuating a lot out there and I think we may have been lucky to catch a lap with no wind ... But we made a good run ... "

FRI FINAL QUALIFYING WASHED OUT

RACE GRID BASED ON FRI PRACTICE TIMES:

GRID - based on practice times (2002 pole 22.176s , Fernandez)
1 Alex Tagliani, 20.882s
2 Michel Jourdain +0.158s
3 Paul Tracy
4 Patrick Carpentier
5 Adrian Fernandez
6 Jimmy Vasser
7 Servia 8 Junqueira 9 Monteiro 10 Haberfeld 11 Manning 12 Dominguez 13 Bourdais 14 Lavin 15 Moreno 16 Hunter-Reay 17 Lemarie 18 *Salles 19 Camathias

THU, QUALIFYING, MAY 29, 2003
(2002 pole 22.176s , Fernandez)
1 Jourdain, 21.04s
2 Tracy +0.035s
3 Carpentier +0.106s
4 Fernandez 5 Vasser 6 Servia 7 Junqueira 8 Tagliani 9 Monteiro 10 Dominguez 11 Haberfeld 12 Manning 13 Lavin 14 Moreno 15 Hunter-Reay 16 Bourdais 17 *Salles 18 Lemarie 19 Camathias

JOURDAIN ON PROV POLE
" ... I´m very happy. .. The most important thing is to be consistent, have a good car in traffic. I think we have a good car for the race .. "

THU PRAC, MAY 29, 2003
1 Tracy, 21.444s
2 Vasser 3 Jourdain 4 Tagliani 5 Servia 6 Fernandez

QUOTES PRE RACE

TRACY: " ... I think I've got to use my experience at Milwaukee, I've won there three times, so we need to have a good result there after two disappointing events in Europe. We kind of gave up our points lead, but going to Milwaukee; well, it's a place I feel good about going .. "

BOURDAIS: " ... Even though we won in Germany, to me Milwaukee will be my first race on an oval .... with the aerodynamic setup that everyone ran on the cars in Germany, it was not as much of an oval feel as the Milwaukee race will be. Milwaukee, to my point of view, is going to be my first proper oval experience because you have to lift and sometimes brake in Milwaukee. It will take a while for us to get up to speed there because we will need to make sure we don't have any big moments with the wall. It will be hard not to make a mistake. It will be the most challenging weekend we have had so far but the Lilly team will steadily prepare for the new experience as they have for the other races ... "

FERNANDEZ: " .. Milwaukee is one of the nicest drives to drive. It is a track that it doesn't have much banking. In the past, the way the configuration we had allowed a lot of passing and side-by-side racing. It's always been one of the best tracks in that respect. For a few years we went away from that, we had different configurations that we had with the wings and all that. And now with this new configuration of high downforce and the power controlled by Ford, we are going to go back to the old days. Just driving this track at the high downforce, it's fantastic. As a driver, that's what you are always looking for. The way we had it before, the cars were very fast on this straight with the low downforce and you have to break a lot into the corner and you cannot see the speed on the corner. But now, we have close to 2,000 pounds of downforce more than before. We are probably going to go flat-out through turns 1 and 2 and that's that really makes an exciting race. If we can add some side-by-side racing, it's going to make great racing .. "

JUNQUEIRA: ' ... I like racing on the one-mile ovals a lot and I think the PacifiCare team can have a good race in Milwaukee. I think that it's never too early to think about the championship. Every race gives you the same number of points so every one is just as important as the next. Being tied with Paul (Tracy) and having our next race take place at The Milwaukee Mile where he is very good would make taking over the points lead after the race even better. In order to finish in front of Paul Tracy in Milwaukee, I think I am going to have to win the race. He's going to be very strong .. "