Toronto: Da Matta goes fourth

Da Matta was unbeatable this weekend, leading all 112 laps and sweeping the maximum of 23 points available on the way to winning by 4.398 seconds over Kenny Brack. Christian Fittipaldi completed a 1-3 finish for Newman/Haas Racing, while fourth place represented a CART career-best for Shinji Nakano.

The victory extended da Matta's championship lead to 48 points over Bruno Junqueira, whose day ended in the Turn 3 tyre wall after he was punted off by the lapped car of rookie Townsend Bell.

Da Matta jumped clear at the start and quickly pulled away from Paul Tracy and the Ganassi Racing cars of Brack and Junqueira. The order remained the same through the first 34-lap stint, and Cristiano's five-second lead remained intact after the stops. Fittipaldi got by Junqueira in the pit stop exchange to begin a lengthy battle with Brack.

Meanwhile, da Matta extended his lead to 12 seconds over Tracy, who began to encounter braking difficulties. The Canadian spun out of second place on Lap 73 and finally parked for the day after another spin on Lap 87.

Da Matta had been held up by Alex Tagliani and his lead over Brack dropped from 11 seconds to five seconds. But he held on through the final pit stops on Lap 88 and sweated out another restart when Bell punted off Junqueira on Lap 92. Once under way, Cristiano had plenty in hand as evidenced by his setting fastest lap on Lap 108 of 112 with a time 0.3 second better than Brack's best.

"With CART's race format this year, you'll never had a cruise," da Matta said after his seventh win in the last 10 races. "Even up front, you have to build up a gap incase something happens like a mistimed yellow. So I pushed hard from start to end, except for the last four laps.

"I thought the others would be closer," he added. "But our car was very good, especially on cold tyres. I was a little concerned when I got held up by Tagliani, but the yellow actually came out at a good time for me. I had saved a new set of tyres on Saturday morning and I made use of that for the last stint. That was crucial."

Brack drove a clean and consistent race, but he just couldn't match da Matta's pace. It was Kenny's best finish since he joined the Ganassi team at the start of this season.

"I tried hard on the restarts but Cristiano just got away," he said. "When you're behind somebody, you're behind and that's that. I'm pleased because we have a good foundation to build on for the next few road course races. But we have to start winning soon if we're going to catch Cristiano."

Behind Fittipaldi and Nakano, Scott Dixon took fifth place ahead of Jimmy Vasser and Tagliani.