Driver quotes from Friday's action at the Molson Champ Car Grand
Prix of Montreal
Sebastien Bourdais (#1 McDonald's Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone):
"You know, just a very good feeling to be able to secure a
front-row start like that for the McDonald's team. It's obviously
extremely important to secure a front start position like that for us
from now on, just to get the points we can. If we can grab a win,
great. If we can't, we just move on and just think "championship."
That's not part of the plan. But maybe.
Oriol Servia (#2 PacifiCare Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone): "I
don't want to be overconfident, but I have the feelingthe PacifiCare team
is going to be in good shape. We are obviously I think 4/10ths clear of
everybody else. It's very impressive for the team. Just happy. This
morning, every time I had a good lap I finished, and I had the red flag,
so didn't count. In qualifying, I had a good lap the last lap that I
thought looked like was going to beat Sebastien, but ran out of fuel in
the last corner, so I had to stop."
Paul Tracy (#3 Indeck Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone): "I think it
went well. Obviously, our plan was to go at the beginning really to
capitalize on the clear track. You know, the car was good, but still
lacking a little bit of grip that we need to do the kind of time that
obviously the Newman/Haas guys did. We need to do some work overnight.
Balance is pretty good. Just lacking a little bit of grip. So we'll
keep working at it."
Cristiano da Matta (#21 Bell Micro Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone):
"I am pleased with the performance of the Bell Micro/PKV Racing
team today. It is a permanent road course, so we expected to be quicker
here, but after what has happened the last couple of races I am very
happy with a top-five qualifying position. I am also happy that we only
a few hundredths of a second from third place."
Jimmy Vasser (#12 Gulfstream Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone): "Not
a bad first day of practice for the PKV Racing team...Cristiano is
fifth and I am sixth. We seem to have a better handle on the car with
this tire and with road course trim instead of street circuit where we
seem to have a little more trouble. All in all it was a pretty good day
for the Bell Micro and Gulfstream PKV Racing cars."
Justin Wilson (#9 CDW Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone): "We
didn't go quite as quickly as we were hoping to today. We've
got a little bit of work to do tonight to see if we can understand what
we are missing. Generally, we're just trying to get a good balance
on the car and get the car to handle well. We're working on it and
getting closer, but we're still just missing a little something
that I hope we'll find for tomorrow."
Timo Glock (#8 DHL Global Mail Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone):
"The #8 DHL Global Mail car was pretty good this afternoon. It was
a lot better and smoother than this morning, so I was happy overall with
the change that we had made. P9 is not a bad start, I think we can
continue to improve the car and improve our overall position tomorrow.
It will all come down to how qualifying goes tomorrow afternoon, we
should have the car to get a positive result, it will just come down to
how much time we get to have a good run. Maybe, if we are lucky, there
will be no red flags!"
Alex Tagliani (#15 Aussie Vineyards Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone):
"The Aussie Vineyards car was really strong in the final short
practice before qualifying -- it was great to be fastest while
running on old tires. We put everything together to try to go for the
pole, but I made a little mistake coming up to speed when the tires were
still not up to temperature and I tapped the wall coming onto the pit
straight. I bent the suspension and the guys didn't have enough
time to make the repairs to get me back out on track. I feel pretty sad
although it is probably my first mistake of the year. It is probably
worse for me because it happened here at my home track."
Marcus Marshall (#5 Aussie Vineyards Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone):
"I really love the track here because it is more like a traditional
road course - although the walls are still very close. It is very
different when you are in the car compared to watching on television.
The straights here are very long and you really don't get that
impression from watching the telecast. We have had a lot of street tracks
lately which are pretty tough to do in your first year. Here at Montreal
I was able to learn the track far easier and get up to speed quicker. It
was great to be 13th today and we actually expected to go a little
quicker but the session ended early with the red flag."
A.J. Allmendinger (#10 Western Union Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone):
"We were only going to use one set of tires in provisional
qualifying so we wanted to go out as late as possible. We thought we had
given ourselves enough time but when someone hits the wall, the safety
guys do all they can to get it cleared in a hurry, but it just takes
time. We didn't start where we wanted to this morning but we were
making some progress. I only got two laps this afternoon but the car did
feel better so we'll keep working tonight and hope we are quicker
tomorrow."
Ryan Hunter-Reay (#31 Red Paw Systems Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone):
"This morning during the practice session I touched the curb, but I
thought it was at a normal angle. However, it launched the rear into the
air and it just never came back. The guys did an amazing job preparing
the backup car for me to qualifying in this afternoon. They worked so
hard and got the #31 Red Paw Systems, Inc. car out there in time to give
us a run or two, but it was unfortunate that the red flag came out,
preventing us from getting back out there this afternoon."
-ccws-
