Hornish and Chevy on Homestead Pole

Contact: Rick Voegelin
rickvoegelin@compuserve.com
GM Racing Communications
(831) 761-2201


Hornish Puts New Chevy Indy V8 on Homestead Pole

HOMESTEAD, Fla., March 1, 2002 -- On a blustery day in southern
Florida, reigning IRL champion Sam Hornish Jr. was gone with the wind,
putting the all-new Chevy Indy V8 on the pole for Saturday's 20th
Anniversary Grand Prix of Miami at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Hornish set
the track record for Indy Racing League cars with a fast lap of 202.884 mph
in Panther Racing's Chevrolet Dallara, eclipsing the 201.551 mph mark set
last year by Jeff Ward with an IRL Aurora V8 engine.

    The Chevy Bowtie came back to open-wheel racing with a vengeance,
sweeping the front row for the IRL's season-opening event. Helio
Castroneves ran the second fastest lap at 202.414 mph with Marlboro Team
Penske's Chevrolet Dallara. Chevy engines powered 22 of the 26 qualifiers
for tomorrow's 200-lap race.

    "We're very happy with the new Chevy engine so far," said Hornish.
"Our race engine is as good as our qualifying engine because they're
exactly the same.

    Hornish has two previous pole starts, both earned with championship
points when rain canceled qualifying. Today he won his third career pole
the pole the old-fashioned way -- by turning the fastest lap on the
low-banked 1.5-mile oval.

    "We thought we could run a little quicker than that in qualifying, but
we didn't know how much the wind had changed," Hornish explained. "I'm
happy about setting the record, but we've really been working on our race
setup. We're here to race, and I can't wait to give the new Chevy Indy V8
its first victory."

    "It's very exciting to see a Chevy Indy V8 engine on the pole
in Chevrolet's first Indy car race since 1993," said GM Racing Group
Manager Joe Negri. "With Chevy's performance today, it is clear that
General Motors is strongly committed to continuing its success in the Indy
Racing League. This is the first event with an all-new engine, and we are
only beginning the development program for the Chevy Indy V8. We are
confident that we will continue to improve the Chevrolet engine's
performance in the future."

    Jaques Lazier will start Team Menard's Chevrolet Dallara on the inside
of the third row after qualifying with a 201.391 mph lap.

    "With the conditions today it's a balancing act in turns 2 and 4,"
Lazier said. "You're hitting the rev limiter at the start-finish line on
the front straight, and only pulling 10,400 rpm on the back straight.

    "We ran our race motor today," Lazier noted. "Every horsepower is hard
to come by, and we're very concerned with reliability. The Team Menard
engine shop worked very hard over the winter to make sure that we can go
the distance at every race. I'm very happy with the progress we've made."

    Castroneves' Penske Racing teammate Gil de Ferran was the first driver
to make a qualifying run today. The two-time CART champion will start sixth
on the grid with a 201.373 mph qualifying speed in Penske's Chevrolet
Dallara.

    "I gave it everything I had today," said de Ferran. "I nailed it the
whole way around. The wind made the car move around quite a bit, but that
was the same thing we faced this morning."

    Gusty winds played havoc with several teams' setups as the cars
were pushed by a tailwind on the front straight and slowed by a headwind on
the back straight.

    "You hit the limiter hard on the front when you're going with wind,
and then you go have a hard time battling the wind on the back," said
Buddy Lazier, 16th fastest qualifier at 197.425 mph in Hemelgarn Racing's
Chevrolet Dallara. "I made the qualifying run in fourth gear, but in
hindsight we might have gone quicker in fifth gear. I was flat out and we
had a real good balance with the car, but it didn't go the speed we wanted.

    "We'll have to be ready to adjust for whatever conditions we
have tomorrow, and this team is very good at that," Lazier noted. "I've got
a real good race car."

TOP SIX QUALIFIERS
Pos./Driver/Engine/Speed
1. Sam Hornish Jr., Chevrolet, 202.884 mph
2. Helio Castroneves, Chevrolet, 202.414
3. Tomas Scheckter, Infiniti, 201.868
4. Eddie Cheever Jr., Infiniti, 201.432
5. Jaques Lazier, Chevrolet, 201.391
6. Gil de Ferran, Chevrolet, 201.373

SCHEDULE
    The 20th Anniversary Grand Prix of Miami will start at 1 p.m. EST
on Saturday, March 2. The 200-lap, 300-mile race will be televised live on
ABC and broadcast live on the Indy Racing Radio Network.

            # # #


  E-mail from: Rick Voegelin, 01-Mar-2002