#55 Kanaan Motegi Friday Qualifying Notes/Quotes

Tony Kanaan

#55 Hollywood/Mo Nunn Racing Honda-Reynard
Firestone Firehawk 500 - Qualifying Notes/Quotes - Friday, May 18, 2001
Twin Ring Motegi - Motegi, Haga-gun, Japan - 1.549-Mile Oval
Round 5 of 21 on the 2001 CART FedEx Championship Series

Tony Kanaan and his #55 Hollywood/Mo Nunn Racing Honda-Reynard qualified
fourth for Saturday's Firestone Firehawk 500.  His best time came on his
first of two qualifying laps around the 1.549-mile Twin Ring Motegi oval, a
26.022-second (214.167-mph) effort that netted him his second-best
qualifying effort of the year.  Kanaan started third at the Long Beach Grand
Prix in early April.

Kanaan's teammate Alex Zanardi and the #66 Pioneer-WorldCom/Mo Nunn Racing
Honda-Reynard will start ninth Saturday after Zanardi's fast lap of 26.088
seconds (213.615 mph).  The top four qualifiers are powered by Honda.  Just
ahead of Kanaan are polesitter Helio Castroneves  at 25.849 seconds (215.591
mph), Dario Franchitti at 25.991 seconds (214.413 mph) and defending series
champion Gil de Ferran at 25.991 seconds (214.386 mph).

Race time Saturday is 12:30 p.m. local time (11:30 p.m. EDT Friday) with a
tape-delayed broadcast set for ABC-TV at 1 p.m. EDT Saturday.  The race can
be followed live via the CART Radio Network and the live timing and scoring
system at www.cart.com.

TONY KANAAN

"Once again, I want to thank my team, and my teammate (Alex Zanardi), for
giving me the setup that put us where we are on the grid.  I was a little
worried about my car after practice this morning.  We were fastest on
Friday, but today we got stuck where we were while everybody else got
faster.  The track changed a lot today.  By qualifying, my car was loose.
But we have an excellent race car, and I'm looking forward to Saturday.
Honda is going all out this weekend.  Just look at the front of the grid
today.  Tomorrow, it's going to be a dogfight."

# # #