Vancouver race: Moreno springs a surprise

The 42-year old Brazilian, whose seat at Patrick Racing looks to be in jeopardy at the end of the season, let his on-track performance serve as a negotiating tool as he earned his second career Champ Car win. Gil de Ferran finished second, 4.687 seconds behind Moreno, and took over as the leader of the CART championship as Helio Castroneves and Kenny Brack suffered bad days.

Moreno qualified seventh but said that electrical problems with his Reynard-Toyota kept him from showing the car's true potential. He jumped up to fourth on the first lap as Brack and Castroneves banged wheels between Turns 1 and 2, sending the Brazilian's Reynard-Honda spinning to a stop.

When the car stuck in reverse gear, Helio had to wait for a tow, lost a lap and was out of the reckoning on the way to 18th place.

At the front, pole man Alex Tagliani led his Forsythe Racing team mate Patrick Carpentier, de Ferran and Moreno. De Ferran and Moreno then swapped positions on Lap 13 when de Ferran¹s Honda engine briefly cut out.

Meanwhile, Tagliani pulled out a 7sec lead before most of the field pitted under yellow on Lap 26 when Castroneves coasted to a stop on the pit straight with a dead engine. After the stops, Tagliani led Scott Dixon (who didn't pit), then Carpentier, Moreno and de Ferran. The order stayed the same until Dixon pitted from second on Lap 40, only to be punted off the track on his out lap by Tora Takagi.

At the same time, Alex Zanardi speared a tyre wall, sending a flood of water onto the track and necessitating a 10-lap yellow.

Once again, Tagliani took off in the lead. Brack tried a move on de Ferran for fourth, which almost put both of them into the wall, but de Ferran maintained the position.

Tagliani's biggest worry at this point came in the form of Takagi, who ran directly behind him on the track and on several times tried to make a pass to get his lap back. Alex responded by extending his lead to 6.4 seconds on Lap 65. But two laps later, it had shrunk to 4.5 seconds, and on the 69th lap, the Player¹s Reynard/Ford coasted to a stop. Tagliani had led all 68 laps to that point.

"It's a shame because I really wanted to get the win," said Tagliani. "It's like Brazil and Elkhart Lake last year. I've been at the front many times but I just can't win.

"This is my biggest disappointment so far, but I think I'm taking this one better because I really liked my car. Maybe all that bad luck last year made me stronger this year."

Almost immediately, the yellow flew when Max Papis crashed heavily on the backstretch.

"I was flat out in the kink and something seized up," said the Italian. "I backed into the wall and it was one of the hardest hits I've taken."

Once again, the leaders pitted, leaving Mauricio Gugelmin in the lead. But he hesitated on the Lap 79 restart, causing the field to jam up at the first turn. A locked up de Ferran just squeezed past Moreno, while Brack ran wide and just missed clipping the tyrewall. Adrian Fernandez, running eighth, spun into the wall, however, bringing out yet another yellow.

When the green flew again on Lap 85, it was clear that the race would be run to a 2hr 10min time limit rather than to the full 100-lap distance. So Moreno didn't waste any time before piling the pressure on de Ferran. The Penske driver made a small bobble on Lap 90, touching the wall on the back straight. Moreno immediately pounced, nipping past in Turn 7. Once in the lead, he pulled away over the next nine laps until the chequered flag dropped after 98 laps.

"I knew straight away in the warm-up that I had a very fast car," Moreno said. "We learned that the car was better on brand new tyres, so we saved three sets and ran only one lap to scuff them. We had a good car for qualifying, but couldn't show it because of an electrical problem. I managed to qualify seventh with only one lap.

"Gil and Alex were strong, but I knew I had a car that could fight with them," he added. "I was worried on the last restart, because I got on the wrong side of Mauricio and got boxed in. Gil was able to take advantage and passed me, but he made a mistake a few laps later and I left no doubt that I was coming through."

"He pulled a great move on me," agreed de Ferran. The 2000 CART champion hasn't won a race in 2001, but he has finished in the top five in the last four races to take over the series lead from his team mate Castroneves.

"We had a good day," de Ferran added. "I thought I had a shot at winning the race, but I clipped the inside wall on the back straight and had to get off the throttle. Moreno just blew by in a flash. I was a little unsettled after that, but thankfully the car was undamaged.

"It would have been nice to win, but Moreno was very strong today. There's six races to go and a lot of work to be done."

Lurking in third in the title chase is Michael Andretti, who drove from 11th to third at Vancouver on Sunday. The American has won in Vancouver three times and has finished on the podium in six of 11 races in the western Canadian city.

"A lot of things happened in front of me today," Andretti said. "It was actually pretty entertaining to watch. There were a lot of guys driving desperately out there because they're looking for a job next year. That's the way I knew it was going to be, so I just tried to keep my nose clean. I don't think we have a mark on the car, and there aren't too many today who can say that."

Fourth went to Tony Kanaan, ahead of Oriol Servia, Michel Jourdain Jr. and Takagi, who took his best Champ Car result with seventh place.

Brack finished eighth to maintain a tie for second in the points with Castroneves, five points behind de Ferran. Ninth went to Dario Franchitti, who never really recovered from a poor qualifying session that left him 19th on the grid and was hampered by a decision to close the pits during the yellow for Papis's crash. Franchitti is fifth in the standings, 30 points behind de Ferran.

The Champ Car series gets a weekend off before travelling to Europe for the inaugural German 500 at Eurospeedway Lausitz on September 15.

For full race results click here.