#66 Zanardi Motegi Thursday Practice Notes/Quotes

Alex Zanardi

#66 Pioneer-WorldCom/Mo Nunn Racing Honda-Reynard
Firestone Firehawk 500 - Practice Notes/Quotes - Thursday, May 17, 2001
Twin Ring Motegi - Motegi, Haga-gun, Japan -1.549-Mile Oval
Round 5 of 21 on the 2001 CART FedEx Championship Series

Alex Zanardi and the #66 Pioneer-WorldCom/Mo Nunn Racing Honda-Reynard
recorded the ninth-fastest practice time of the day for Sunday's Firestone
Firehawk 500.  His fast time came in the morning session at 26.352 seconds
(an average of 211.475-mph) over the 1.549-mph Twin Ring Motegi oval.  He
followed that up with a lap of 26.486 seconds (210.405 mph) in the afternoon
session, which was 12th-best in that session.

Zanardi's teammate Tony Kanaan and the #55 Hollywood/Mo Nunn Racing
Honda-Reynard clocked the fastest practice time of the day.  Kanaan's best
time came in the morning session, as well - a 26.142-second (213.174-mph)
lap.  In the afternoon session, Kanaan's run of 26.248 seconds (212.313 mph)
was beaten only by Helio Castroneves' 26.192-second (212.767-mph) lap.
Castroneves' afternoon time was the second fastest of the day.  Cristiano da
Matta's 26.255-second (212.257-mph) lap this afternoon was the
third-quickest of the day.

Practice continues at 9:30 a.m. local time Friday (8:30 p.m. EDT Thursday),
followed by qualifying at 1:30 p.m. local time (12:30 a.m. EDT) Friday.
Race time is 12:30 p.m. local time Saturday (11:30 p.m. EDT Friday) with a
tape-delayed broadcast set for ABC-TV at 1 p.m. EDT Saturday.

ALEX ZANARDI

"We started with a very good race car today, but then we changed a lot of
things and couldn't go as fast as we wanted to in the afternoon.  But Tony
continued in the same direction we started in this morning and proved some
things that we believed after the morning session.  I'm very much looking to
going out and running in the morning to verify those things for ourselves.
I'm confident that we will have a good result this weekend."

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