INDY RACING LEAGUE SERIES: INDIANAPOLIS 500

May 11, 2002

Chip Ganassi

Mike Hull

Bruno Junqueira

BRUNO JUNQUEIRA: Thank you.

BRUNO JUNQUEIRA: Very long. This was the longest seven hours of my life. First thing, I have to thank Team Target to give a great car. I had a lot of confidence to be the first go out. I didn't know exactly how was the track, and the car was just so good, just keep flat-out on the four laps, and I got very good average speed. Then I was pretty confident that that speed could give me a good position, but I never knew if I could get the pole or not. But I had to wait and exercise my patience.

CHIP GANASSI: Just, you know, for us, when we did it with Luyendyk, it was at the end of the day, and we were the -- we were the hunter, instead of the hunted. We accomplished that goal, you know, at quarter to 6:00 at the end of the day. Being the first car out was a new thing for us. I remember the years of Roger being the first one to go, and, you know, being this is my 20th year here at Indianapolis, to see -- I've always wanted to be the first car to go out, and I never got those low-picked numbers like that. And my father did a great job drawing last evening. He's been a little off his game the last couple of years on the draw, but he vaulted back to the front. He picked us a low number and we took full advantage of it.

MIKE HULL: Team's effort has been fantastic, as always. I think we are very fortunate; we have three quality drivers, and one group of people, that supports three guys. It's a testament to all of those guys what Bruno did today. You referred to 1993, with Arie. I'm don't know whether all of you guys remember this, I'm sure all of you were probably here, you've been here longer than most all of us, but we were the fastest guys with Arie all week, and we figured out in that month that it wasn't the best thing to be the fastest guy every die. In fact, with Arie, when we went to do our first run, they booed us because we were so slow. It took us all day to get back to the front. So Bruno did a heck of a job. And the pressure he's under didn't seem to bother him today. It's fantastic.

BRUNO JUNQUEIRA: I don't know. I think it's really good for Brazil, to show -- I think last year they finished 1 and 2, and I finished fifth. And let's see if another Brazilian can win the race.

BRUNO JUNQUEIRA: I was hoping that nobody could beat me, you know. I don't want -- really, one thing, I was not hoping for rain, because I don't like to get -- because the other people do not have the opportunity. Let everybody have the opportunity, then see who is better prepared. I don't want to do well because someone didn't have the opportunity or did bad, you know. It was a really long wait. I went to the motor home, I went to the truck, I went to the garage, I went to the pit lane and went back again. I couldn't really stop more than 30 minutes in one place.

CHIP GANASSI: Eddie, you always have these questions, I don't know where you get them. Bruno has always been a part of the mix. When we were talking to Tony Stewart, that would have been a fourth car.

BRUNO JUNQUEIRA: No. I was watching the list, and I was -- maybe the first one of my engineers said Raul can do it. And when he did a good lap, -- because first he had a lot of experience, and he seemed -- I know that they want the pole very hard, and I bet he had a big qualifying engine on that car. And I knew that he could -- he did like 230 this morning and I said, "He'll do 230 on qualify." Because some drivers, you know that when they go really fast, they are getting those in practice. And I know Raul, how well he is experienced, he does not need to prove. He was trying the speed that he did in the morning could do on the qualify, and then I knew that he would be fast.

CHIP GANASSI: Quite frankly, I was a little surprised to see Raul up there. He's done -- he knows his way around this place and you forget sometimes, there's a lot of these guys walking around the garage area with a lot of talent. And just the mere fact that he got in that car at a very late eleventh hour or whatever didn't seem to slow him down. That's a quality team, and they did a great job. Very surprising.

BRUNO JUNQUEIRA: I won poles, won races. Lost poles, lost races. I think it was really competitive. But I had a pretty successful Brazilian go-cart career. I won the Brazilian championship race against them two years, three years in a row, when I was like 13, 14, 15 and then 16 I started to race race cars, and then my last three years was good.

BRUNO JUNQUEIRA: Yeah, it's really nice, you know, because you grow up together and race against each other, but being his friend, you want to see everybody succeed. And then racing in highest level of motor racing and doing well is really nice.

CHIP GANASSI: I think the drivers did a great job. We didn't give them the cars to get to the front. Is that brief enough?

CHIP GANASSI: These guys today, they have to have a car under them to do it. We didn't give it to them. The team takes the blame for that.

BRUNO JUNQUEIRA: I was in the garage and I said, "ooh." He did the first 231; I hope he goes low and keep it. And then the last one, the last was close because when he did his first outing, he did like 229, and the next lap 228; and I said okay, because I thought him and Helio (ph) especially could be the two guys that could really be close. Then he went out and tried again same as -- I thought that -- (inaudible) -- that they had another chance and I had to be anxious again. It was really difficult with this system.

BRUNO JUNQUEIRA: First, today is a pole. A victory in a pole does not win the race. But I always say the best win is the next one that you're going to get. It doesn't matter if it be Indianapolis -- for sure, this one more than all of the other ones that I've had in my career. But a racing car driver, he wants to win races. If one day I have a chance to win this one, my next big one, it will be Milwaukee on the next Sunday, you know. I always want to win and the next race is always the most important.

BRUNO JUNQUEIRA: This race is really big in Brazil. I remember, I told first time I was -- I just raced go-CART and then I was going to the hotel. I was watching it on TV and after on the radio when Emerson won in '89, I just saw the end of the race, I was in the hotel and I saw him and Al Unser, Junior, he crashed into Al Unser, Junior on the last lap. This race is really big in Brazil. It will be good if -- just to have like five Brazilians on Top-6, Top-5, would be big. Brazilians love race and they will support us.

CHIP GANASSI: We're open for ideas. I mean, I'm not -- I'm not saying yes; I'm not saying no. Somebody comes up with an idea, that makes sense, we'll do it. If somebody comes up with an idea that doesn't make sense, we won't do it.

MIKE HULL: I think some of us were affected by the changing weather conditions on the racetrack, and some of us collectively probably screwed ourselves into the ground a little bit. To really give you a very honest evaluation of the situation, you guys haven't lived until you've gotten inside that box Bruno got in today to have to leave to qualify for those four laps. I don't think there's four laps anywhere in the world that are like those four laps, either for the race driver, the owner, the manager, the mechanics, the engineers, the truck drivers, the people over in the hospitality. Those are the four hardest laps you'll find anywhere in the world. What you're looking at today is a guy that did something that very few people have ever had the opportunity to do, and guys like us are lucky enough to be around him. So, I think that's really the way we should answer the question.

CHIP GANASSI: Well, I think, you know obviously the guy likes this place. I think we proved a year ago that with relatively little practice, he qualified. Remember, he was the fastest rookie here last year. Helio might have won the race, but Bruno was the fastest rookie, and that was with what, maybe 50 laps of practice or something? He didn't have very many practice laps last year and he was a second-weekend qualify. So, obviously, the guy likes the place. Did we face our challenges last year in Bruno's rookie year throughout the season? Certainly. But you know what, everybody likes a winner, and the guy wins races. And if he does big things at the big tracks, you've got to like him. It's that simple.

BRUNO JUNQUEIRA: Yeah, I try to do my best. I think last year, I could do better, but because of no experience and maybe pressure on myself too much, I won one race and stopped one race from the pole. Because I'm Team Target, that was -- inaudible -- organized not that good, but I bet if I was on any other team, they say, oh, this guy is really good , he already won a race and stopped one race from the pole in his first year. But I think I learned form last year. I think an intelligent person is one that learns from your mistakes, and keeps learning and improving. I think I learned last year, and this year I'm trying to do better.

CHIP GANASSI: You talking about last year's race? We knew we had cars that were very fast, and we knew that if we had two drivers to put in them, they would go fast, and we had two drivers on the payroll and that's the first two drivers we went to. It was not -- I don't think there was ever a discussion about any other drivers. It was, hey, let's put Bruno and Nicholas in those cars and go.

CHIP GANASSI: Bruno's not doing the double. (Laughter).

CHIP GANASSI: Sterling isn't coming to Indy, either.

CHIP GANASSI: The thought had crossed my mind. The point is, that I try not to get caught up in those kind of thoughts and try keep my head down and keep my feet moving and take care of the team. Whatever happens, happens. That's one 500-mile race and one 600-mile race, and we know that anything could happen in either one of those. The fastest guys don't always win and the best guys don't always win. That's especially characteristic of 500-plus mile races. But it sure would be fun.

BRUNO JUNQUEIRA: I have my it helped my confidence and Team Target's confidence. It was really hard to work in Indianapolis. We spent the whole month here working every day, 6:00, 7:00 in the morning. The guys are ready, I think not just me, all the guys are motivated. They really want to do well here and continue the success that they started in Motegi.

BRUNO JUNQUEIRA: I think the best thing of to get this pole is the first time in my life, very often when you win a race, you qualify Saturday and you race Sunday. Then you're going to have 24 hours of happiness and then you go to race, you can have a longer time or you cannot have, you know. But the good thing of to win the pole here is that you are going to have two weeks and until the race starts you're going to be really happy. (Laughs). I live in Indianapolis and it's going to be even better.