CART: Zanardi retires early at Long Beach

Posted By Terry Callahan
Motorsports Editor, The Auto Channel

April 9, 2001

Alex Zanardi retired on Lap 28 of a scheduled 82 laps in today’s Grand Prix of Long Beach when his #66 Pioneer-WorldCom/Mo Nunn Racing Honda-Reynard encountered overheating problems as a result of earlier contact with another car. He placed 26th. Zanardi started from the 20th position in his second race for Mo Nunn Racing and chose to pit for fuel during a caution period on Lap 10. He fell back to 22nd place but was running well when the car of Bruno Junqueira hit him in the right rear of his #66 car, damaging the suspension and cooling system. Zanardi pitted on Lap 26 to allow the crew to examine the problem. He then retired two laps later.

His teammate Tony Kanaan started third and finished seventh today in the #55 Hollywood/Mo Nunn Racing Honda-Reynard. Polesitter Helio Castroneves led every lap and took his fourth career win today, followed by Cristiano da Matta in second and Gil de Ferran in third.

The series resumes in three weeks with the Firestone Firehawk 600 at Texas Motor Speedway, Round Three of the 2001 CART FedEx Championship Series on April 27-29.

ALEX ZANARDI

“I had a great car, and had it not been for the Junqueira coming out of nowhere and T-boning me going into Turn 7, I think we had a car capable of a very strong finish. It’s very disappointing getting taken out of the race like that. But over the course of the season, those things happen. I was also having problems with my brake adjuster, which made me keep locking up the rear wheels, but that wasn’t the worst of what happened today, by any means. We could have worked our way through that. That’s the way it goes. Now, it’s on to Texas.”

Text provided by Laz Denes

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