As preparations continue for 2005 season
source:
f1.racing-live.com
Just two weeks removed from trying their hands at
sports-car racing, 2002 Champ Car World Series Champion Cristiano da Matta and
2003 titlewinner Paul Tracy got back down to their primary businesses with Champ
Car testing at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
Tracy and his Forsythe Championship Racing squad made their first test laps of
the 2005 preseason, running two days of testing on the Homestead infield road
course. They were joined by PKV Racing over the two days as da Matta completed
his second and third test days of the year.
"I'm really excited about being back in the car," Tracy said. "We worked through
our testing program and didn't have any problems at all. We concentrated on
making the car better than last year and I think we are moving in the right
direction. We ran our fastest laps on the last run of each day so we know we
were making some good progress."
Neither team reported any major problems and each turned approximately 175 miles
per day on the Florida track, which hosted Champ Cars on the oval from
1997-2000.
"PKV Racing had a very good test," said new PKV Racing Team Manager Jim McGee. "Cristiano
ran both days which gave him a lot of track time to get reacquainted with a
Champ Car and based on our past data his times were very competitive. However,
the main objective of the test was to continue to work through our aerodynamic
and mechanical programs and we made a lot of progress in both those areas."
Forsythe's squad ran just the one car for Tracy over the two days as they
continue preparations on the rest of its 2005 Champ Car program but Forsythe
Championship Racing General Manager Neil Micklewright reported that the team got
a lot done in its first outing of the year.
"Overall we were pretty pleased," Micklewright said. "We tried some various
geometries on the car and we went back and re-tested some of the things we used
last year to make sure that they were things we wanted to use. It was good to
get everybody back in the groove."
Both PKV Racing and Forsythe Championship Racing will take the next couple of
weeks to analyze the data before heading out to Fontana for a March 7-9 test
session on the California Speedway infield road course.