CART: Cleveland Grand Prix Friday Qualifying Notes, Bryan Herta
26 June 1999
BRYAN HERTA -8- Shell Ford-Cosworth - Qualified 3rd -- "There is a lot more in the car than what we showed today. The red flags during the session couldn't have come at a worse time for us. Every time we had a good run going the red flag would come out." HOW IS THE TRACK SURFACE? "Its hard to get the car to work through the bumps, especially in the corners. It makes the car very twitchy. But at the same time it's kind of fun. When you come to Cleveland you expect that though. It's part of the challenge of the track. I think the track will improve overall as the weekend goes on. It was very dirty this morning and it's taking a little longer for the track to come too but each lap we put on it the better it gets." EARLY ON IN THE SEASON YOU STRUGGLED ON THE OVALS. AT ANY POINT DID THE LACK OF SUCCESS START TO GET TO YOU? "It was frustrating that's for sure. We spent a lot of time during the off season working on our oval package. But when we were not having success early on we started to loose confidence. We tried and tried to fix things and change the way we went about things but we ended up just getting lost. It was never a situation of loosing confidence. Everyone really stuck together. In a situation like that it is very easy to start pointing fingers but I give credit to Bobby Rahal for helping us all work through that. It's not a situation of the ovals not being as important as the road courses because it is very important for me to run good on ovals. But it is nice to be up front on the grid again. I guess I got my Mojo back." MAX PAPIS -7- Miller Lite Ford-Cosworth - Qualified 20th "It was a very difficult day for us today. The Miller Lite car wasn't what we wanted today. Early on in the session we had a big understeer and were sliding around a lot. Plus the session was broken up by quite a few red flags. Right now we are just looking for that middle ground for the setup. The track is not that good right now but that's no excuse. We have to improve our car for Saturday."Editors Note: For hundreds of hot racing photos and racing art, be sure to visit The Racing ImageGalleries and the Visions of Speed Art Gallery.