Long Beach Crash Doesn’t Keep De Ferran From Pole
Gil de Ferran sat in his spare car, waiting impatiently Saturday as Alex Zanardi took dead aim and came up short in the final round of qualifying for the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach at Long Beach, Calif.
De Ferran, who won the provisional pole on Friday, was forced into his backup after being involved in a frightening accident during the Saturday morning practice session on the 1.59-mile, eight-turn downtown street circuit.
The Brazilian was making what he thought was a routine pass on the slower car of Hiro Matsushita as the two drove down the slightly curved front straightaway. Suddenly, de Ferran was confronted with the stopped car of rookie Gualter Salles.
“When I came out from behind (Matsushita), all I saw was the parked car,” de Ferran explained. “I did my best to avoid him and I just managed to somehow miss hitting him straight from the back. It was a very scary moment.”
Although De Ferran’s Reynard-Honda sheared off its own right side and the left side of Salles’ Reynard-Ford, neither was injured.
That left de Ferran with a dilemma. If he withdrew his primary car prior to qualifying, he also would lose the record-breaking 111.313-mph lap that put him on the provisional pole.
CART rules allow a backup car to be substituted for a qualified car on race day, but do not allow drivers to qualify in two cars. That means, if you run a second car, the speed posted in the first car is superseded.
Team owner Derrick Walker decided to keep the backup on pit lane, ready to go at a moment’s notice if the track proved to be faster than Friday. It did not.
Six days after getting his first career Winston Cup victory, Jeff Burton got his fifth triumph on the Busch Grand National circuit by pulling away to win the Moore’s Snacks 250 in Bristol, Tenn.
After rain delayed the start of the race at Bristol Motor Speedway for 2 hours, Burton led three times for 139 of the 250 laps, including the final 38 circuits around the .533-mile, high-banked oval.
The rain forced the cancellation of second-round qualifying for today’s Food City 500, which meant the back end of the 43-car starting grid was determined on the basis of Friday’s first round of time trials, when the top 25 spots were set and Rusty Wallace won the pole with a speed of 123.586 mph.
Canada’s Jacques Villeneuve ran a lap in a track-record time of 1 minute, 24.473 seconds - nearly a second faster than teammate Heinz-Harald Frentzen, who earned the second spot on the starting grid - and won his third consecutive pole for today’s Argentine Grand Prix in Buenos Aires.