Andretti joins the testing fray

The all-time victory leader in CART competition lapped the track more than 100 times and expressed satisfaction with his first outing of the season.

"It's always nice to regroup and have some time off after the season," said Andretti. "But by the first week of January, I'm ready to get back on the race track and get to work. This was a very good first test. The Team Motorola guys did a great job in preparing the car so we were able to get a lot of work done and I felt like it was a productive two days."

Motorola team manager Tony Cotman echoed Andretti's sentiments on what was a positive start to the 2002 season.

"We kept Michael in the car pretty much the whole two days," Cotman said. "You can tell that the conditioning Michael does during the winter really pays off because he wasn't fatigued at all. We finished the test a bit early and we were right on pace. It was a good test and I think we're establishing a good baseline to start the season."

Cristiano Da Matta also brought his off-season break to an end and began testing work for the Newman-Haas team. The Brazilian, who won the last two races of the 2001 campaign, took over duties from team mate Christian Fittipaldi in the 2002-spec Lola-Toyota and jumped to the top of the unofficial time charts.

"It was great to get back behind the wheel," said da Matta. "The car was nicely balanced after Christian worked with it for two days."