Race: Deja vu, Penske one-two

From there on out, the only difference to last year's Mid-Ohio contest was the fact that Castroneves didn't lead every lap the rest of the way. But he was in front for the final 18 laps, beating de Ferran to the line by 1.568 seconds for Penske's second consecutive Mid-Ohio one-two finish.

Patrick Carpentier was third, earning his third consecutive trip to the podium.

The result tightened up the CART championship considerably. Series leader Kenny Brack failed to score after being punted off the road by his Team Rahal stablemate Max Papis for the second time in three races. Also failing to score was Dario Franchitti, who spun his Team Green Reynard-Honda at the fast Turn 1 on the final restart and dropped to 16th at the finish.

That leaves Brack a single point ahead of Castroneves at 104-103, with de Ferran now third on 89 points. Franchitti stays put on 81, 8 points ahead of his team mate Michael Andretti. The American was the first retirement in Sunday's race.

De Ferran took the lead from his pole position at the start, heading Castroneves, Jimmy Vasser, Carpentier, Franchitti and Paul Tracy. For the first few laps, Vasser was able to keep in touch with the closely matched Penske pair, running less than three seconds behind. Then it was another four seconds back to Franchitti, who got by Carpentier when the French Canadian ran wide at Turn 1 on Lap 10.

Then the Penskes turned up the wick and began to pull away from Vasser at around half a second a lap. By Lap 20, de Ferran led his team mate by a second, while Vasser ran 6.8 seconds back. But he was pulling away from Franchitti, who now lagged behind the leader by 13 seconds.

De Ferran made his pit stop at the end of Lap 28, and Castroneves two laps later. But just like last year, Gil lost the lead, this year mainly because he caught up behind Adrian Fernandez and Shinji Nakano and lost a chunk of time on the track. But Castroneves got an assist from the Ganassi crew, who pulled Memo Gidley's tires out of the way so Helio could get a clean shot into his pit.

"That might have won us the race," commented Castroneves' crew chief Rick Rinamin.

Another contributing factor was Castroneves' decision to run an extra lap before pitting.

"When I was right behind Gil, they said that we were going to pit a lap early because of the traffic," Helio said. "I saw the traffic in front of him, but it was still kind of far away. At the last minute when I had to turn in, I said, 'Wait a minute, I want to do another lap.' There was silence on the radio, and I thought, 'Oh Jesus!'

"The fuel meter said everything was fine, but you know computers. All of a sudden the fuel alarm came on when I was almost to the pits, but I knew I was safe. That was crucial, because I passed Gil and a couple of lapped guys. From that point, I knew my car was great and I just took it easy."

De Ferran said he thought Castroneves' crew might not have given him a full fuel load in an effort to save time in the pits. But he admitted that it was probably a moot point thanks to the traffic he encountered on his out lap.

"We were trying to go as far as he could and I guess he made a little better mileage," de Ferran said. That's always the case. Whoever comes in first is usually a bit penalised, especially when you have a clear track in front of you.

"I knew when I came in and he didn't, I would have to do something pretty spectacular on my out lap to stay ahead of him. But unfortunately I had Fernandez and Nakano in front of me, and they were fighting for position. I got by one of them, but it slowed me down a significant amount. It's hard to say if I would have come out ahead of Helio if they hadn't been there, but it's unlikely because he had another lap."

Castroneves was left with a 4.5-second lead, but it was short lived because the yellow flew almost immediately when Papis ran his team mate Brack off the road at Turn 6. Struggling with an oversteering car, Brack had made a small mistake at the previous turn and Papis optimistically tried to take advantage.

Team boss Bobby Rahal, on hand at his home track during a break between Formula 1 races, was not impressed, particularly since Brack was on his in lap. "For a team mate to do that is inexcusable," said Rahal. "I don't know what Max was thinking, but that's the kind of stuff that keeps you from winning championships."

After three laps of yellow, Castroneves resumed in the lead, and the race ran under the green flag from Lap 34 to Lap 51. By that time, Castroneves led de Ferran by 6 seconds and Franchitti by more than 13 seconds.

"At the beginning, the rain we had this morning hurt us because my car was set up for the amount of rubber we had on the track yesterday," Castroneves said. "I had a lot of oversteer at the beginning, but after that, the track got grip and my car settled down a little bit. It turned out to be a great car, especially at the end of the race.

The yellow flew when Adrian Fernandez went straight on at Turn 4 after a total brake failure. Fortunately, the Mexican walked away without injury after clouting a tyre wall head on at over 100mph.

"It went completely to the bottom of the monocoque," Fernandez said. "Basically there was nothing I could do. I knew I was in trouble when I approached the sand trap. The only thing I did was put my head forward to limit my head movement with the HANS Device. I took my hands off the steering wheel and just went along for the ride."

The leaders all pitted on Lap 54, and Castroneves kept the lead. However, the Forsythe team managed to get Carpentier out of the pits ahead of Franchitti. When the green flew, the lead quartet ran in close formation for the next 18 laps until the yellow flew again, this time when Tora Takagi spun off.

The Lap 76 restart proved to be disastrous for Franchitti, who performed a lurid spin in the daunting Turn 1. After rotating completely, Franchitti's car speared back across the track directly in front of Tony Kanaan, who had to swerve violently to avoid the Scot's Reynard-Honda.

"I don't know how I got through it," Kanaan admitted. "It was like the movie 'Days of Thunder' where the crew chief tells Tom Cruise to accelerate through the smoke. That's what I did."

"My mistake," Franchitti said. "It stepped out on me at that point pretty much every lap, but I guess it really stepped out that lap. Maybe it was cold tyres, maybe it was marbles. Either way it's disappointing."

For the final 10 laps, Carpentier kept the Penskes in touch. But they ran in formation to the finish, with Tracy fourth, Kanaan fifth and Roberto Moreno sixth.

"That was a fantastic job by Team Penske," said an enthusiastic Castroneves, who did his traditional victory fence climb after his sixth career CART win and third of the 2001 season. "Putting two cars at the top was definitely not easy. To see how much effort everyone puts in is really great.

"It's also good for the championship, but there are a lot of races left."

De Ferran was disappointed to come second best to his team mate again at Mid-Ohio, but he feels he is in excellent position for the stretch run of the championship.

"I can't go nuts," he said. "I'm disappointed that I didn't win the race, but I just can't go 'bleahhh.' It was his day; he was a little stronger and won the race. He was fortunate on the pit stop deal, and bingo. I wasn't strong enough to challenge him or overtake him on the race track. Sometimes I'd be a little bit better, sometimes he'd be a little bit better, each of us gaining a tenth or two.

"We're both very well matched, so the slightest thing can swing the pendulum either way," Gil added. "It's been that way for the past two years. The difference has been fairly small. So I think we need to keep doing what we've been doing and hopefully we'll get it right. Certainly second place is not a win, but nevertheless it was important for us to score those points and not go home empty-handed."

Carpentier's mid-season rally has moved him to eighth in the points, just 8 points behind Andretti in fifth.

"I was a bit worried about that after the last yellow," he said. "We had a loose car pretty much all day today, though we improved it a bit at the end of the race. I know my car was stronger than Dario's in corner 1, and his car was stronger than mine in the back section. But the restart was in corner 1, so I had a bit of an advantage there. At the end he went into the corner really hard, hit the curb and spun the car. We had a good car where we needed it."

Behind the top six, Oriol Servia used an alternate pit strategy to lead Laps 55-65 before earning a ninth place finish, while Alex Zanardi ran in the top 10 but was penalised by CART for passing under the yellow and dropped to a 19th place result.

For full results click here.