CART: Zanardi gets best finish of season at Toronto

Posted By Terry Callahan
Motorsports Editor, The Auto Channel

July 15, 2001

Alex Zanardi and the #66 Pioneer-WorldCom/Mo Nunn Racing Honda-Reynard recorded their best finish of the season, a fourth-place effort, in today's Molson Indy Toronto. Zanardi started 24th and meticulously picked off car after car during today's 95-lap event over the 1.721-mile temporary street course at Toronto's Exhibition Place. He made a valiant effort to catch third-place finishing Adrian Fernandez for his first podium finish as a driver for Mo Nunn Racing, but ran out of laps at the end. Zanardi moved to 17th place in the driver points standings with today's finish.

Teammate Tony Kanaan and the #55 Hollywood/Mo Nunn Racing Honda-Reynard had a hard-luck afternoon, seeing near victory turn into heartache with fuel-filler problems. Kanaan started fourth and finished 10th. He took the lead with 30 laps to go, but it was discovered he did not take on enough fuel on his second and final scheduled pit stop of the day. He pitted one lap later for another splash of fuel, but even that turned out to not be enough as he ran out of fuel on course on the last lap of the race.

Michael Andretti won for the first time this season, followed across the finish line by Alex Tagliani and Fernandez.

The next stop on the 2001 CART FedEx Championship Series is next weekend (July 20-22) for the Michigan 500, Round 11 of 21, at Michigan Speedway.

ALEX ZANARDI

"That was even more fun than Cleveland (where Zanardi was vying for a podium finish two weekends ago before having his left-rear tire flattened by Max Wilson). It looks like my engineers are getting good at giving me a competitive race car on Sundays. That's definitely a step in the right direction for our team. We struggle trying to get a good qualifying car, which has put us in a rather difficult position at the start of our races. But we're starting to get the job done for the race, which is the best day of the weekend to have a good car. I don't need the fastest car out there. Just give me a fast car and I'll pass people. Even here at Toronto, where everybody complains about not being able to pass, I was able to get by people almost at will. I'll tell you what ... that's a great feeling for a race car driver. We had a couple of problems getting our wheels on right on our two (scheduled) pit stops. You never know what might have been if we had perfect pit stops. But I'm not complaining. I'm pumped to go to Michigan next week!"

Text provided by Laz Denes

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