Champ Car World Series: Cleveland Grand Prix

Topics:  Cleveland Grand Prix

Sebastien Bourdais
Patrick Carpentier
Paul Tracy
July 5, 2003

CLEVELAND, OHIO

ERIC MAUK: We are joined right now by our 2nd and 3rd place qualifiers. Driver of the #32 Player's/Indeck Ford-Cosworth Lola Bridgestone, Patrick Carpentier who used his last lap of his 15 to climb into the 3rd spot with a lap of 58.449 seconds, 129.713 miles per hour, defending race Champion, Patrick is on the qualifying podium for the second time this season. He took one pole earlier this year at Laguna Seca. An eventful evening for you out there. Tell us about it.

PATRICK CARPENTIER: Yeah, I was done spinning. We decided to go for a lap. I was just pushing really hard and pushing maybe a little bit too early and the tire pressure was not up to what it was supposed to be and the car was really snappy. (Inaudible) That lap came through. But the guys did a good change. I was struggling in the Corner 5 and 6 and the car wouldn't change direction. They did a bit of a change and it really helped me so I got through there faster.

PATRICK CARPENTIER: No, not really because when I went out that first early on it was a 58.7 and I thought the car had definitely a little bit more into it so it was not so bad today. Last night for me seemed to be a lot more slippery that it was today.

PAUL TRACY: I had a good -- my last quick warmup lap was 58.7. I was pretty surprised by that and then I was going for it on that lap and I got to Turn 1 and I split it halfway down the backstraight, I was a couple of tenths up on my quick lap and then I said, oh, this is going to be good, I am really going to push it. And I went through 3, 4 and I was hard on it through 4 and flat, you know, holding the throttle down then it just broke away from me. I spun, and caused a red, so we were going to have to -- on the second set of tires we were going to have to do two lap times to achieve one because we would lose our quick time. So we sat there for a little bit and thought about it, times weren't really coming down and guys were struggling and dropping wheels off and a lot of dirt was flying in the air. Just decided well, we're going to save the tires for the race and start on a set of stickers and then we didn't think it was going to happen. I had my fingers crossed and then right with about a minute to go Sebastien put his time in. We were watching, we could see that he was going quick. So a little bit disappointed because we felt that we could have done better, but it just -- seems like the first day qualifying should be my day and that's a good day to do it on.

PAUL TRACY: Better than last night. I didn't think it was going to get dark so quick; then it got cloudy. I had like a half smoke screen on and I didn't have any trouble seeing it all. So it was good. They moved some lights around and I felt it was much better.

SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS: I mean, yesterday during -- in these conditions we had a very good car and we worked a lot on the setup to be -- which achieved something very good. So we were fairly confident and I didn't do the same time, it was just a matter of the remaining time in the session, we were running out of laps so I was okay with that and I knew it was going to be okay as long as we had good conditions. (Inaudible) Was a bit afraid it was not going to work very well. Didn't put a lap together after 5 laps, we had a red, so it was not -- things were not going so great. And second run I started pretty late in the session and I had quite a lot of flat to achieve something good so took my time to get up to speed and tried to put good laps together and step by step and it worked fairly well. I was a bit scared when Patrick spun and I said oh, shit, it is a red, now it's over, so it was -- I was not completely confident, but obviously we didn't get a big big problem and been able to put quick laps at the very end.

PAUL TRACY: You are making us miss the 4th of July.

PAUL TRACY: Can we open up the curtains so we can see the fireworks?

SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS: Yeah, you know, 'til the session is not over, you never know if you are going to get pole or not. And I didn't feel I had very -- achieved a very great job so I thought some guys were going to be able to be better, simply, so I just tried to -- I didn't want to cause a red and lose my lap time but also a quicker lap, so it was kind of in between, you know.

PAUL TRACY: Well, I think both Sebastien and I both have an understanding, we've done this already three times together already and it's always been very fair, there have been no games played. You know, the last few starts the starters done have not been very successful. This is a difficult track to start from because the guys from a couple of rows back always try to make a maneuver in the first corner. This is a difficult one to start, but I think that Sebastien and I have a good track record with each other. It has been fair and clean and we have been able to lead the field away pretty good. So I think that's what we both want to achieve tomorrow.

SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS: I think I have always been a very good qualifier, there's no doubt about it. I did five poles out of six in Formula 3000 at the beginning of the year so there is no doubt about getting the best out of the tires. It is the package, the package between the engineers. I need to be thankful because I could not do it on my own.

PAUL TRACY: I think it is just -- the track, I mean, once you get out there, we went out after the TransAm, it was very slippery and then the track got better and better and then you get -- everybody starts trying really hard and you see the amount of cars going off and dirt is flying all over the place. This is a tricky track - very high speed corners, and when a car throws a bunch of dirt on the track right in front of you it upsets probably three or four cars, the next three or four cars through. And it doesn't take very much to lose a half a second here because if you just miss the line a slide, you know, it kills the lap time. So when the track conditions are right, I mean, when Pat and Sebastien did their time at the very end, there wasn't many people left on the track and there wasn't all this dirt flying all over the place, and the track was calm. There was only three or four cars left. I think that was the difference. Most everybody had done their laps and come in.

SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS: To be very honest, I didn't get pretty much of a problem yesterday, so I didn't pay much attention with the changes. It looks like everybody is satisfied.

PATRICK CARPENTIER: For me it was good, just at the end there at the back, one of the corners down at the back there, there was a couple of lights in our eyes. For me I just had a clear visor and I just -- they changed those and pointed in different angles and today I didn't really see it. It was pretty good today.

PATRICK CARPENTIER: No, nobody did. The rule was not passed and nobody switched to titanium floors. They were talking about it, but it never materialized.

PAUL TRACY: I didn't notice any difference. It looked the same to me. It always looks the same. There's always tires there at the apexes, quarter way into the race and they are gone because people hit them and they disappear, so you know, (laughter) I try to stay on the track as much as I can.

SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS: It is true as long as you go through the (inaudible) the less you see the tires, very true. (LAUGHTER)

PATRICK CARPENTIER: You see a few pieces of front wing passed the corner.

ERIC MAUK: That will wrap it up.