#10 Kanaan CART Monterrey Saturday Final Qualifying

Contact:  Laz Denes, 256-657-6190
ldenes@monunnracing.com
www.monunnracing.com

Tony Kanaan

#10 Pioneer-WorldCom/Mo Nunn Racing Honda-Reynard
Grand Prix of Monterrey - Final Qualifying Notes/Quotes - Saturday, March 9,
2002
Fundidora Park - Monterrey, Mexico - 2.1-Mile Temporary Street Course
Round 1 of 20 on the 2002 CART FedEx Championship Series


Tony Kanaan drove the #10 Pioneer-WorldCom/Mo Nunn Racing Honda-Reynard will
start Sunday's 2002 CART FedEx Championship Series season-opening
Tecate/Telmex Grand Prix of Monterrey from the inside of the seventh row
after rain this afternoon washed out any chance of improving on Friday's
provisional qualifying times.

Just five cars (Michael Andretti and Sunday's polesitter, Adrian Fernandez,
Shinji Nakano, Scott Dixon and Alex Tagliani) recorded lap times on the
rain-soaked 2.1-mile temporary road course around Monterrey's Fundidora
Park, well off the pace set during dry provisional qualifying on Friday.
Kanaan's lap Friday of 1 minute, 19.985 seconds (94.698 mph) was 13th
overall among the 20 cars entered here this weekend.  Fernandez, a local
favorite, earned the pole in 1:18.929 (95.965 mph), followed in the order by
Dario Franchitti (1:19.202/95.634) and Tagliani (1:19.241/95.587).

The full field took to the track for practice in dry conditions this morning
and lap times dropped considerably compared to Friday's qualifying times.
Cristiano da Matta, last year's race winner here, clocked a best lap of
1:16.486 (99.030 mph), followed by Jimmy Vasser (1:16.504/99.007) and Oriol
Servia (1:16.646/98.823).  Kanaan, hampered by traffic all session long,
turned in a best lap of 1:17.762 (97.405 mph) this morning, good for 18th
overall.

Sunday morning's 30-minute warm-up session begins at 11 a.m. CST (noon EDT).
Race time is 3 p.m CST (4 p.m. EST) with a live broadcast set for Speed
Channel.  A 30-minute pre-race show will also air Sunday beginning at 3:30
p.m. EST on Speed Channel.  Coverage of today's action will be shown on
Speed Channel this evening at 8 p.m. EST


TONY KANAAN QUOTES

"Obviously, we're disappointed that we couldn't have a chance to improve on
where we ended up yesterday.  But Mother Nature is about the only thing you
have no control over at the races, and it's basically the same for
everybody, so we can't complain.  We're starting from about the same
position as we started here last year (12th).  Hopefully, the track has
matured enough to allow for some more passing than we had last year and we'
ll be able to finish way better than seventh.  It'll be interesting to see
what happens in the race with the new pit stop rules (competitors must stop
by Lap 27 and then no sooner than every 27 laps thereafter), so that
strategy of stopping on all the yellows that all the cars who started in the
back used until last year goes out the window.  We've got a solid race car,
I think, so let's go to it."

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