#10 Kanaan CART Miami Friday Provisional Qualifying

MIAMI, Fla. (October 4, 2002) -- Tony Kanaan and the #10 Pioneer-WorldCom/Mo Nunn Racing Honda-Lola are on the provisional pole for Sunday's inaugural Grand Prix Americas on the brand new 1.379-mile temporary street circuit around downtown Miami's Bayfront Park.  Kanaan, a native of Brazil but a resident of Miami, recorded a hot lap of 1 minute, 1.264 seconds (81.503 mph) in today's provisional qualifying session to earn a championship point and guarantee a front-row starting spot for Sunday's 104-lap event.
Scott Dixon had the next-best lap at 1:01.264 (81.264 mph), followed by Tora Takagi at 1:02.039 (81.264 mph) at third on the provisional grid.

Should Kanaan hang onto the pole through final qualifying Saturday, it would be the third of his CART FedEx Championship Series career and second ever on a road course.  He was on the pole for the Long Beach Grand Prix in 1999, as well as on the 1-mile oval at Chicago last season.

Practice and qualifying continue Saturday.  Final qualifying is set for 1:15 p.m. EDT with a live broadcast set for SPEED Channel beginning at 1 p.m. EDT.  Race time Sunday is 1 p.m. EDT with a live broadcast set for CBS-TV in most markets (check local listings).

TONY KANAAN

"I can't say how good it feels to be on the provisional pole in my own hometown.  It's great to be sleeping in my own be during a race weekend to begin with, so having a good weekend on the race track tastes so much sweeter.  The car was just great from the very start of practice this morning.  Our best lap in the morning session was actually one second faster than our official lap because the red flag came out for a crash.  I ended up with a 62.4 and my engineer Iain was telling me I was headed for a 61.4 when the red flag came out.  So all I said was that we had to go out and do it again, and we did two-tenths better.  I hope we can go out and do better tomorrow, but there's no telling which way the track is going to go with the heat and some of the trouble spots out there.  At any rate, I hope it's slower!  That's just a joke!"