#66 Zanardi Long Beach Practice Notes/Quotes

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

#66 Alex Zanardi

#66 Pioneer-WorldCom/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 Road Course Round 2 of 21 on the 2001 CART FedEx Championship Series

Alex Zanardi and the #66 Pioneer-WorldCom/Mo Nunn Racing Honda-Reynard ended up 22nd on the timesheets today after the opening two rounds of practice for Sunday’s Grand Prix of Long Beach. Zanardi tried a number of different setups on his car during 3-1/2 hours of practice today, split into morning and afternoon sessions, but could not quite find a suitable one. His best lap came in the afternoon session, an effort of 1 minute, 9.404 seconds (an average of 102.081 mph) around the 1.968-mile temporary street course overlooking Long Beach Harbor.

Zanardi’s teammate Tony Kanaan, in his #55 Hollywood/Mo Nunn Racing Honda-Reynard, clocked the fastest lap of the day to lead all competitors. Kanaan’s time was 1:07.759 (104.559 mph) and came on his very last lap of today’s afternoon practice session. Kanaan was the polesitter here two years ago and was second-fastest in today’s morning practice session. His fast lap this afternoon 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).

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.

ALEX ZANARDI

“I can’t say it’s very satisfying to see your name 22nd on the timesheets. But, to be perfectly honest, we were trying all kinds of things. Some of them were very radical. And we just didn’t have it right. That happens. But that’s the beauty of having a teammate. One can go one way with the setup and the other can try something totally different, and if one of you gets it right, then you know what to do to go faster. We’ll compare notes tonight and get the best of what we learned all on one sheet of paper, and hopefully come back much stronger tomorrow.

"That aside, I’m really excited to be back here at Long Beach. I’ve had some of my greatest racing memories here, and I hope we can live the dream again by the end of the day Sunday.”

# # #