CHAMP CAR WORLD SERIES: THE CLEVELAND GRAND PRIX

July 3, 2003

Sebastien Bourdais

Patrick Carpentier

Paul Tracy

SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS: I think it's a lot of fun on this track. You can push very hard. We saw a lot of guys going out of the track because basically you can go out of the line and still continue in the session. So it's a lot of fun, you can push hard, and it's interesting.

SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS: The problem is basically when somebody goes off of the track, is carrying some dust on the line, and when you arrive on that, most of the time you spin off, so you put even more dust on the track and it gets worse and worse. So it's fairly difficult to manage that. It's also very difficult to anticipate because you never know who did the mistake in front of you or not. So it's pretty tough. But it's for everybody the same. I think I did a good last lap. The Newman/Haas team did a great job because I never went there and we only had an hour session of practice before the qualifying. I'm pretty pleased to be on the top three for the moment.

SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS: Yeah, it was very close to crash actually because I just succeeded to keep the front tires on the track, so basically the car rotated with the back on the grass, but still with a bit of grip on the front, so I didn't completely lost control of the car. I succeed to go back on the track. But, yeah, it was very close. I've been a bit lucky on this.

PATRICK CARPENTIER: It was good. That lap went pretty well. But I knew I had to put a really, really good lap in to try to beat Paul's time. He put a good lap in. So that's what I was trying. We did a 58.8. Then we had another lap that was going really, really good. Seemed to be a little bit faster. I don't know if it would have been fast enough for the pole or not. But ended up in a 360, quite a bit of dirt and sand and stuff like that. Lost that lap. So I came back on the track and I went to try one more time on the last lap, but I blocked Jimmy when I came back out of the grass, and blocked him quite a bit. So I apologize to Jimmy because I knew he was on his fast lap. But there's always tomorrow. It was a lot of fun. I like this track. You can push really hard, like Sebastien said. You go off, you come back, you try the next lap. It's a lot of fun.

PATRICK CARPENTIER: For sure I like this place. In Ohio we had good success last year, won here and won Mid-Ohio. But this year's very competitive. It's going to be a night race, so it's a little bit different. It's going to make things very interesting.

PAUL TRACY: I had a good lap going previous to that lap, and I got a wheel off the track. I did a 360 coming out of turn four, the same place that Pat did it. So, you know, I had to just regroup and try to put the lap together. It was the last lap of my first set of tires. So, you know, I was pretty happy just to get that lap because I just had the one chance to do it. And then I came in and we waited a little bit and went back out, and the track seemed to be like it wasn't as good after that. There were a lot of guys going off, a lot of dirt on the track. It just made it more difficult to do the time. I was able to do another 58.8 after that, but couldn't get close to the time that I did on the first set.

PAUL TRACY: I hope it's not going to be pitch black. I hope there will be some lights on (laughter). Might be a bit hard to see. No, I'm looking forward to it. I haven't seen the track lit up yet. The first session will be partially lit. So I think it's going to be a lot of fun.

PAUL TRACY: Well, I think you're always learning something when you go out on the track. We made quite a lot of changes to the car before qualifying. I was just okay with the car this morning, but I felt there was a lot of things we could change. Both Pat and myself made a lot of changes to the car, you know, quite a bit, damper, springs, and downforce configuration. So the car was much better right from the warm-up. I was on old tires, and the car was as quick as I ran in the morning on old tires. So I knew we could put a good lap in, and the lap came.

PAUL TRACY: I think the track will get faster as we run on it more. It was much faster from this morning till now. I think at night it will get faster because the track temperature will be cooler, there will be more downforce. It should just get faster.

PAUL TRACY: That's what you have to deal with here. That's kind of the way it is. You have to deal with that in the race. Guys are dropping wheels off in the race a lot. Kind of the end of the race, guys cutting through the grass in the last chicane. That's kind of the way it is.

PATRICK CARPENTIER: It will be interesting tonight to see if the guys that go off course can find their way back (laughter).

SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS: No, I think during the race it will be easier because you'll see during the race, you don't push, try to make the flying lap, you just try to be more consistent as can you and put a good series of laps without getting out because basically you can be one-tenth or two quicker. But if you go off of the track, you lose five seconds. So at the end of the day, it's not a big gain. So it's better to stay on the track, don't put dust. I think the situation would be easier for a longer run during the races.

PAUL TRACY: Well, you know, it's nice.

PATRICK CARPENTIER: Yeah, he's getting old (laughter).

PAUL TRACY: Yeah, getting old. I'll note it should be my 201st start if it wasn't for Wally (laughter). Should have celebrated last week.

SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS: No, it's the very first time. That's why I'm pretty pleased to be there, especially with the amount of testing we had to compare with a regular weekend, it's quite difficult. But I think the biggest problem is to put a lap together because you can be very competitive in nearly all the corners. You say, "Yes, this time I have the lap," and you just screw up at the very end, and you say, "Oh, shit." You could do it again. No, it's not very easy to put a lap together, to be honest. That's my biggest problem for the moment.

PAUL TRACY: I think it's going to be a lot easier to do it at night when it's 20 degrees cooler than in the daytime. Last year was I think the same distance. It's a pretty tiring race. The pace was fast. You know, Pat, he won by quite a big margin. He must have been in better shape than everybody else (laughter).

PATRICK CARPENTIER: No, it was tough last year actually. I was dehydrated after the race, a little bit sick. So this year I think it's going to be quite a bit better. And it was pretty hot, too. I think it was like close to a hundred degrees, so.

PATRICK CARPENTIER: No, it's fine. No, I'm okay now. No, I bent the trailer when I hit it, but I'm fine now (laughter). I was pretty lucky.