Da Matta bids farewell to CART

The Brazilian received his award at the CART banquet in Miami and took the opportunity to talk about his fondness for the series and what he had gained out of his four years racing in it.

"There's no price that I can put on what I got our of my time in CART," da Matta said. "This series has helped me realize my dreams of winning a championship and I will give all the support I can to the series. The least I can do is support CART any way I can."

Da Matta will now turn his attention to an intense testing programme with Toyota which begins on Tuesday at the Paul Ricard circuit in France. He will be testing for 14 of the next 20 days before getting a break to return home to Brazil.

His CART team boss Carl Haas bid farewell to his champion at the awards ceremony and predicted that da Matta will enjoy success in F1.

"I pride myself at being pretty good at picking out racing talent and I paid close attention to him in 2000 and I really chased him very hard," Haas said. "He really came into his own this year and I think that he bears watching in the future because I believe he will make all of us very proud of him in the years to come."