October 4, 1998
CART: Mercedes Powers Moore to Houston Pole
HOUSTON, TX: Greg Moore scored the sixth pole of the year for Mercedes-Benz and
Player’s/Forsythe Racing, outpacing the rest of the FedEx Championship
Series field on the 1.527-mile downtown Houston street circuit, site of
tomorrow’s inaugural Texaco Grand Prix of Houston.
Greg Moore
Moore managed the feat with only about 12 minutes of on-track time.
First, the session was interrupted when Alex Zanardi crashed heavily in the
first corner (he was uninjured). Then, Moore had to park the
Player’s/Indeck Reynard/Mercedes for the final eight minutes of the session
to serve a penalty for causing a red flag during yesterday’s provisional
qualifying.
Despite the short run, Moore claimed his fourth pole of the season
with a quick lap of 59.508 seconds (92.377 mph), .062 seconds quicker than
second place qualifier Dario Franchitti.
Taking some direction from the setup of teammate Al Unser Jr.,
Marlboro Team Penske’s Andre Ribeiro went from 19th in provisional
qualifying to 10th in today’s final session. Traffic, however, hindered
Unser, and he will start 16th.
PacWest Racing’s Mauricio Gugelmin and Team Alumax rookie Helio
Castro-Neves will start 15th and 17th, respectively. Hogan Racing rookie JJ
Lehto and Motorola Reynard/Mercedes driver Mark Blundell qualified 21st and
22nd, and Patrick Carpentier qualified the second Player’s/Forsythe car
25th.
Tomorrow’s 100-lap race will start at 4 p.m. ET and will be
televised live on ABC.
Mercedes Quotes
Greg Moore, No. 99, Player’s/Indeck Reynard/Mercedes/Firestone: Pole Winner
- 59.508 sec.
"I’m really pleased. We’re starting up front, and we’re getting
$10,000 in Marlboro money, but the most important thing is that we got that
point for the pole. After Alex (Zanardi) crashed, we only had about six or
seven minutes to go because we had to serve the eight-minute penalty for
causing the red flag in provisional qualifying yesterday. So we just had to
give it our best shot and really hang it out--if I touched the wall a
little bit, that was okay. It’s going to be a long, long day tomorrow, but
hopefully being 23 and working out a lot will pay off. We’ll just stay out
of trouble and see how it goes."
Andre Ribeiro, No. 3, Marlboro Penske/Mercedes/Goodyear: 10th - 60.266 sec.
"We did a very intense program this morning with both cars going in
different directions. It turned out Al’s setup was better, so we took a
look at it and went in that direction for this afternoon. The car was quite
good for qualifying. It’s important to be near the front here, not because
the track is so narrow like other street circuits, but because if you are
too far back, no matter how fast you go, you lose touch with the leaders."
Mauricio Gugelmin, No. 17 Hollywood Reynard/Mercedes/Firestone: 15th -
60.450 sec.
"We’re better. We made a switch and the changes made quite a bit
of improvement. We’re still fighting for grip in the medium-speed corners.
We need more traction. The tires are going to go off during long runs
tomorrow. I feel a lot of people will struggle with rear tires no matter
what you do. To get ahead tomorrow you will have to use up your rear
tires. We will have a lot of yellow flags tomorrow for sure."
Al Unser Jr., No. 2, Marlboro Penske/Mercedes/Goodyear: 16th - 60.554 sec.
"Today’s qualifying session was not what we had hoped for. Every
time I had a fast lap going, I encountered traffic, so I was unable to
significantly improve my position on the starting grid. We should have a
good setup on the Marlboro Penske Mercedes for the race tomorrow--Andre
(Ribeiro) and I ran a very similar setup today, and he was able to qualify
in the top 10."
Helio Castro-Neves, No. 16 Alumax Reynard/Mercedes/Goodyear: 17th - 60.580
sec.
"I’m very frustrated. We were working so well this morning. I
don’t know what happened in qualifying. We can’t lose focus, because we
were doing a great job before. We’ve started so far back so much lately.
It is definitely a shame."
JJ Lehto, No. 9 Hogan Racing Reynard/Mercedes/Firestone: 21st - 60.904 sec.
"We have no grip. We did a big change and nothing happened. We’re
missing on the basic setup. A lot of things don’t seem to be working at
the moment. We basically need more grip."
Mark Blundell, No. 18 Motorola Reynard/Mercedes/Firestone: 22nd - 60.906
sec.
"We had a problem at the beginning of the session which cost us
time in the pits. We did improve our car, though. We didn’t improve quite
good enough. We’ll work on getting ready in the morning and see what we
can do in the race."
Patrick Carpentier, No. 33, Player’s/Indeck Reynard/Mercedes/Firestone:
25th - 61.098 sec.
"The car was better this morning, but we made some changes, and
they just didn’t work. On my first set of tires, I kept running into
traffic. We had to back up and back up and back up to get some space to
run. Then on my second set, I didn’t have any traffic. JJ (Lehto) let me go
by, but then I ran out of fuel. It’s very bad because it’s so difficult to
pass here. We’ll just have to run around and hope we can make something
happen in the pits. We’re going to try everything because we have nothing
to lose."
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