De Ferran rues race collisions

Confusion after a restart led the Reynard Honda driver to run into Jimmy Vasser's Lola, which, de Ferran claimed, was detrimental to the car's performance.

"Moreno had a problem and he slowed right down and so did Vasser," said de Ferran.

"I must apologize to Vasser, because I ran straight into the back of him and broke my front wing. It caught me by surprise. I had quite a bit of understeer in the car after that, and I was having a tough time braking. I couldn't dive underneath people with ease."

However, de Ferran's problems were set to worsen and incredibly, another collision - this time with Player's driver Alex Tagliani - led to a spin which dropped the 32 year old down to ninth, and out of contention.

"I tried to give Tagliani some space in front of me, but I hit him as we were accelerating out of the hairpin. I guess I miscalculated and didn't leave enough distance. All of a sudden everyone slowed right down and -- boom -- I hit him in the back. I couldn't get out of it and I did a half-spin."

On a three-stop strategy - the same as winner Paul Tracy - de Ferran's team mate Helio Castro Neves (who started ninth) finished second, no doubt provking a certain amount of soul serching on the part of de Ferran, centred around what might have been.

"The chips just didn¹t fall our way today," he said.