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Written by:
David Phillips
04/13/2007 - 07:00 PM
Long Beach, Calif.
Great pit work by a fired-up Forsythe crew helped Servia's cause, and may have kick-started a significant development for the team. (LAT photo) ยป More Photos
TRACY OUT, SERVIA IN
Paul Tracy has been ruled out of tomorrow's Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach after suffering a compression fracture of the L1 vertebrae when he ran wide in Turn One and smacked the tire wall during this morning's practice session. Tracy was subsequently transported to nearby St. Mary's Hospital complaining of back pain. X-rays and MRI examinations comfirmed the injury, which may also preclude him from competing in the third round of the 2007 Champ Car World Series at Houston next week. Tracy is scheduled to fly to Indianapolis tomorrow where he will be examined by noted orthopedic surgeon Dr. Terry Trammell.
Forsythe Championship Racing quickly deputized Oriol Servia to take over for Tracy at Long Beach. After a hasty seat fitting, Servia ran the No. 3 Indeck Panoz-Cosworth in the afternoon's pre-qualifying practice session and then in qualifying itself, turning a best lap of 1:08.922 to put the car in 14th spot on the grid (albeit nearly half a second off the 1:08.573 Tracy's posted yesterday).
"The car feels very good," said Servia, who set fastest time of the initial pre-season test in one of PKV Racing's Panoz-Cosworths at Sebring this spring. "With today's practice and qualifying plus tomorrow's warm-up we'll have plenty of time to get the car set up for the race," he deadpanned. "Obviously this is not the ideal situation. But it's still one of the best cars in the series and it's one of the best teams in the series. I feel bad for Paul. Nobody wants to see another driver get injured, but at the same time this is a great opportunity for me."
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DA MATTA'S RETURN
On a far, far happier note, Cristiano da Matta made a very welcome return to the Champ Car paddock today, having arrived in Long Beach last night from his home in Brazil accompanied by his father Antonino "Tony." Da Matta, of course, suffered critical head injuries when his car was struck by a deer during a test session at Road America last August. After spending several weeks in intensive care, da Matta flew back to Brazil last September where he has continued his recovery.
"I was originally thinking of coming to the Las Vegas race," he explained, "but I've gotten very involved in my brother's helmet painting business and couldn't get away last weekend. That turned out to be a good thing, because I'm able to come to Long Beach and also I'll be going back to Wisconsin next week to see the doctors who cared for me last
"We'll see if they give me a green light or a red light to resume racing. I'm not an expert but I kind of expect they will want to wait a little longer. But that's OK. For now I'm just happy to be back here and seeing all my old friends."
Indeed, da Matta probably would have been hard-pressed to find an environment where he could better work on strength and conditioning in his right hand and arm, such was the number of handshakes he found himself doling out as he walked through the paddock and pit lane . . .
DEJA VU ALL OVER AGAIN
Today's qualifying session was a virtual carbon copy of yesterday's session in that a red flag came out with less than five minutes remaining, just as the session was reaching its climax. But where Will Power was able to take advantage of his favorable spot on pit lane (closest to pit out and therefore free of traffic) yesterday and snatch the overnight pole from Sebastien Bourdais at the last moment after the session resumed, he had no such luck today. Not that he didn't try or didn't come close . . .
"I got my best lap on the last lap on my first run," said Power. And then the last, the second run, there was the red flag. You know, our tires were almost up to temperature, so we were first out of pit lane
when it went green again. I was right on Sebastien's time the whole way 'round the circuit, but then I pushed that little bit too hard in the hairpin and understeered wide. I lost it all there."
DUTCH NIGHTMARE
Robert Doornbos made a significant improvement in his starting position today, posting sixth-fastest time at 1:08.183, more than a second and a half quicker than yesterday's effort which left him 14th on the provisional grid. Thing is, there was probably lots more to come . . .
"We improved the car a lot in the final segment of the lap (the long left-handers at Turn 10 and the final hairpin)," he said. "The guys did a great job on the car between the morning practice and qualifying. We went out and did a 68.1 but then my worst nightmare happened: my engineer told me to pit, but I missed the pit entry and ran out of fuel. It was so hot just sitting in the car on the track, it was like being in a sauna for the entire session! That was the longest 20 minutes of my life! I had to sit there and hope for a red flag so they could tow me in and I could get restarted. But it didn't happen."
At least it didn't happen until far too late. Katherine Legge spun in Turn 10 with just a couple of minutes remaining in the session. Although the session was stopped so safety workers could retrieve her car, they simply pushed it into the pits via the "back door" shortcut at Turn 10, leaving no time to retrieve Doornbos' stranded Team Minardi USA machine.
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