Paul Tracy in Monterrey
PT 4TH IN MONTERREY
MONTERREY, Mexico – May 21, 2006 – Paul finished todays race in P4. After starting in P5 Paul made a first lap move to pass Bruno Junqueira in turn 5 to put PT in 4th position. He remained there until the first round of pit stops on lap 26 for debris on the track. After the pit stop PT once again found himself in P5 behind Bruno, but another quick move on cold tires saw him pass his way into P4. Paul pitted next on lap 53 before most of the field but when things shook out after all other lead cars pitted PT once again found himself in P4 which is where he would finish todays race.
PT finished all laps in a time of 1:40:37.474 at an average speed of 95.347 MPH.
Paul: “We have a lot of work to do; we have to be consistently quick at all the tracks, not just some of them. I had a good start and I managed to pass Bruno (Junqueira) on cold tires, I was able to keep up with the top 3 for a while but over long runs they were faster and I lost them, we just didn’t have enough grip to keep up with them. I was also having problems with my drink bottle which was very distracting, water was splashing in my face so I ripped out the tube and was not able to drink most of it, and it was really hot today so that was rough. We finished fourth, which is OK for points, but we need to start winning races to be able to catch up to Bourdais on the Championship.”
PT 5TH IN MONTERREY FINAL QUALIFYING
MONTERREY, Mexico – May 20, 2006 – Paul finished todays qualifying session in P5 and ran a fast lap of 1:14.009 @ 102.344 MPH.
Paul: “It’s been a frustrating weekend, we can’t seem to solve some issues that we have with the car and it’s kept us from getting closer to the front. We’ve been having problems with the brakes, as soon as I try to go deep into the braking zone I lock up and its slowing me down. It’s going to be a tough fight tomorrow, this track is very slippery and between that and the heat there’s going to be a lot of mistakes out there, if we can have a consistent race without any mistakes and good pit stops I know that we’ll be able to finish on the podium and keep adding points to our chase for the Vanderbilt Cup.”
PT 4TH IN MONTERREY Q1
MONTERREY, Mexico – May 19, 2006 – Paul finished todays qualifying session in P4 and ran a fast lap of 1:15.144 @ 100.798 MPH.
Paul: “I’m very disappointed because I know we could’ve had a much better qualifying position today. I was held up during qualifying for almost a complete lap by a slower car. Then we had that Red Flag at the end that made it pretty difficult to get out, find space and throw down a lap before the end of the session. But this track is always very slow on the first day so I’m sure the grid will be set tomorrow. We’ll work on the 3 car tonight and see if we can’t put it up front tomorrow.”