Fittipaldi upbeat for new season
Christian Fittipaldi says that the Newman-Haas team will be an even stronger Champ Car force in 2002 after a successful shakedown of his new Lola-Toyota at Sebring this week.
"We had the usual first-test problems but overall we are happy with the fact that we learned some areas that we can work on before our next test," said the Brazilian star. "We ran over 200 trouble-free miles today and our quickest time was a 51.7s, but I think there was more speed in the car if we would have put more laps together in a row."
Fittipaldi's new race engineer Craig Hampson was on his first official day on the job after being promoted from within the team following a successful two-race trial at the end of 2001.
"Everything is a known quantity from the Toyota engine to the Lola chassis to the driver so we can just concentrate on building upon an already established relationship," said Hampson.
Fittipaldi's team mate Cristiano da Matta will test for the team on January 21-23 at Sebring.
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