Kanaan on pole tomorrow in Miami source: CART.com MIAMI-Tony Kanaan (#10 Pioneer/WorldCom Honda/Lola/Bridgestone) took the slow boat to the third pole of his CART FedEx Championship Series career Saturday, riding the waves caused by heavy showers to take the top spot for Sunday's Grand Prix Americas. Kanaan, who lives just five minutes from the 1.387-mile temporary street circuit in downtown Miami, was the only driver not to roll off of Pit Lane in Saturday's qualifying as the wet conditions made the track treacherous for those looking to secure a good starting spot. With the wet track keeping lap times well away from his Friday standard of 61.264 seconds (81.503 mph), Kanaan knew that he had his pole position wrapped up and declined to risk damage to his car by participating in Saturday's final qualifying. The decision by Kanaan to rest on his laurels did not diminish a fiercely-competitive battle on the track however, as the battle to lead Saturday's qualifying was waged throughout the 40-minute session. When the CART Chief Steward determined that the qualifying session would be run under wet weather rules, it meant that the new CART rules limiting qualifiers to just 15 laps were tabled, allowing drivers to run as many laps as they wanted. Saturday's session was of key importance for Sunday's race, as the leader of the final qualifying would be guaranteed a front-row starting spot and a championship point, no matter what the leading time would be. The lifting of the restrictions meant that the battle could be joined immediately and Scott Dixon (#44 Target Toyota/Lola/Bridgestone) made the most of it. Dixon went out and vaulted to the top of the charts, where he, Team Rahal's Michel Jourdain Jr. (#9 Office Depot Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone) and Dixon's teammate Kenny Brack (#12 Target Toyota/Lola/Bridgestone) would trade the point back and forth for the next 20 minutes. The rains made for a very slick track and a session punctuated by red flags, mainly in Turn 6 where Dario Franchitti (#27 KOOL Honda/Lola/Bridgestone), Shinji Nakano (#52 Alpine/Mitsuba Honda/Lola/Bridgestone), Paul Tracy (#26 KOOL Honda/Lola/Bridgestone) and Adrian Fernandez (#51 Tecate/Quaker State/Telmex Honda/Lola/Bridgestone) all had minor troubles during the qualifying run.
Recent Articles
|
Racing Multimedia
Recommendations |