Darren Manning Montreal column
Montreal was frustrating because we were quick at certain points of the weekend, but we were poor in the race. We didn't have any straight-line speed despite running a fresh engine and a low-downforce set-up. We should have been fast on the straights and slow in the corners, but instead it was the other way around
In practice, we were fifth fastest but we dropped down to ninth in qualifying. It's massively up and down and that's what is more frustrating than anything, because we have the pace. I was probably faster than the guys around me when I was in the corners. I was getting out of those corners well, but the others pulled away from me on the straights.
It's actually been a trend during the last few races. We've been fast on numerous occasions but we've never been fastest in the speed traps. I think we need to look back through the year at sector times and the set-up we've had on the car.
We're affected far too much by temperature and the track conditions. Everyone else tends to stay the same - they just go a little faster or slower - whereas we'll jump from being fastest to P10, then back to being fastest, throughout the weekend, and we're not changing much on the car.
It was a lonely race. I had a little battle with Tiago Monteiro at the start and I ran with Jimmy Vasser for a while, but basically I was on my own the entire race and that's a bit boring. The biggest problem is that I didn't have a pit lane speed limiter and that probably cost us 10 seconds over the three pit-stops. You rely on it so much and you never really practice without it, and that might have put me ahead of Adrian Fernandez and Max Papis. As it was, I came 10th.
Sportsbook.com has come on board with us for the rest of the year and is looking at continuing into 2004. It's good in the present climate of CART that people want to come in, and we're one of the only teams that keeps adding names to the car. We're doing some things right, anyway!
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