Preview: Drivers set for long day
Today's Champ Car race at Road America is officially called the Motorola 220. But once again, CART has extended the race distance, and 60 laps of Road America works out to 240.88 miles, making for a long day of work for the drivers.
"This track is not that physical, but 60 laps here will be not easy, especially if it gets hot," remarked pole man Bruno Junqueira, who is also the defending race winner. "All the fast corners take a lot of driver concentration. I think this track is very easy to make mistakes on and even if you don't make a mistake, you can get into a little bit of dirt or gravel where you can slip a little bit and make a mistake. You have to pay attention the whole race."
"Mid-Ohio is probably the toughest race for the drivers, but I think this is the toughest race track for the cars," added CART championship leader Cristiano da Matta, who was fastest in the Sunday morning warmup with a 1m45.394s lap. "The engine spends a long time on top revs, with lots of gear changes and a lot of hard braking. It's hard on the brakes, the gearbox and the engines. But not as hard on the drivers as Mid-Ohio."
Junqueira was 12th fastest in the warm-up, while Alex Tagliani, who will start the race third, was 17th out of 18.
Champ Car races at Road America generally don't feature many laps of yellow, so today's event should effectively be a 60-lap sprint. The CART-mandated pit window has been set at 14 laps, so each driver will have to make a minimum of four pit stops over the course of the afternoon.
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