#55 Kanaan Long Beach Friday Practice Notes/Quotes

Contact: Laz Denes, 310-538-2599 ldenes@monunnracing.com www.monunnracing.com

#55 Tony Kanaan

#55 Hollywood/Mo Nunn Racing Honda-Reynard Grand Prix of Long Beach – Practice Notes-Quotes – Friday, April 6, 2001

The Streets of Long Beach, Calif. – 1.968-Mile Temporary Street Course Round 2 of 21 on the 2001 CART FedEx Championship Series

Tony Kanaan and the #55 Hollywood/Mo Nunn Racing Honda-Reynard clocked the fastest lap on the opening day of practice today for Sunday’s Grand Prix of Long Beach. He made his way around the scenic 1.968-mile temporary street course overlooking Long Beach Harbor in 1 minute, 7.759 seconds (an average of 104.559 mph) on his very last lap of today’s afternoon practice session. Kanaan, the polesitter here two years ago, was almost six-tenths of a second faster than his next closest competitor, Oriol Servia, who recorded a lap of 1:08.305 (103.723 mph). Paul Tracy was third in 1:08.375 (103.617 mph) with Helio Castroneves fourth at 1:08.388 (103.597 mph) and Patrick Carpentier fifth at 1:08.402 (103.576 mph). Kanaan was second-fastest in this morning’s opening practice session.

Kanaan’s teammate Alex Zanardi, in the #66 Pioneer-WorldCom Honda-Reynard, clocked the 22nd-fastest time of the afternoon session at 1:09.44 (102.081 mph).

Practice resumes Saturday at 10 a.m. with qualifying set to begin at 1:45 p.m. Sunday’s race begins at 1 p.m. local time (4 p.m. EDT) with a live broadcast carried by ABC-TV.

TONY KANAAN

“The car felt good right out of the box this morning, so we’re very, very pleased. This is a real boost to the team and I’m really happy for the guys. They’ve been working really hard and to have a day like this is a really good payoff. But, we also know it’s only practice and, tomorrow, this will all mean nothing. We were trying to save tires all day. We used one set in the morning session. Then we scrubbed another set this afternoon before putting on another set for our final run. I was fortunate to get a clear lap right when I needed it. We still have a lot to improve. There are a couple of corners that we still need to work on. You’ll see everybody’s times improve a lot tomorrow. You’ll see my teammate improve, as well. He tried some radical changes in the middle of the session that didn’t quite work out. But we benefited from what he learned while he, unfortunately, didn’t have the time to change his car back. I’m sure he’s not worried. He knows we have a good setup between the two of us.”

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