Race No. 2
1999 Firestone Firehawk 500
Twin Ring Motegi — Motegi, Japan
April 8-10, 1999
Thursday Quotes from Japan:| Index of Quotes available | ||
|---|---|---|
| MICHAEL ANDRETTI | ADRIAN FERNANDEZ | CHRISTIAN FITTIPALDI |
| DARIO FRANCHITTI | ROBBY GORDON | BRYAN HERTA |
| P.J. JONES | TONY KANAAN | MAX PAPIS |
| PAUL TRACY | ||
 | Kmart/Texaco/Havoline Swift Ford |
| MICHAEL ANDRETTI | |
| [on the incident with Montoya] I am not really sure what disappoints me more, the move he(Montoya) pulled or the way he reacted afterwards. | |
 | Kmart/Texaco Havoline Newman/Haas Racing Swift Ford |
| CHRISTIAN FITTIPALDI | |
| We were working on longruns this afternoon. We had a long run of 46 laps and put a total of 72laps on the set of tires and we still pulled the quick lap at the end ofthe session. I feel very good about where we are so far this weekend. | |
 | Miller Lite Team Rahal Reynard Ford |
| MAX PAPIS | |
| We seemed to have a very fastcar from the word "go" today. Everything was really up in the airduring the session because we lost about 25 minutes in the pit becauseof the accident (with Andretti and Montoya). So we only did a quarterof the job we wanted to do today. We have a very strong race car and wemay not have maximized the race car yet. My confidence in the car ishigh. | |
 | Shell Team Rahal Reynard Ford |
| BRYAN HERTA | |
| Today was a character buildingday. The car was pretty loose all day. It was very loose this morningbut we did make a lot of progress this afternoon. We will give itanother shot tomorrow but I feel pretty good that we can improve thesetup. | |
 | Team Kool Green Reynard Honda |
| DARIO FRANCHITTI | |
| I think we're getting close to the perfect setup with the car, I'm very happy. A couple of small adjustments and I think we'll be right there. The wind was blowing really hard and you had to be careful out there. Paul and I will sit down with the Team KOOL Green engineers to figure out how to go faster tomorrow. We've pretty much got the car good through Turns 1 and 2, but we need to get through Turns 3 and 4 a little better. | |
 | Team Kool Green Reynard Honda |
| PAUL TRACY | |
| To recover from our problems this morning (wheel bearing & engine) and not panic by starting to change stuff is very satisfying and shows how strong Team KOOL Green is going to be this season. The car was great this afternoon. As I said, we didn't make any changes from this morning. I was able to get close to guys in traffic and the car was stable. The wind wasn't much of a problem for us. We've got the rear real solid and that's key. If we can maintain the car we have today, we're going to be strong on race day. | |
 | McDonald'sForsythe Championship Racing Team Reynard Honda |
| TONY KANAAN | |
| Well, I believe we have a better race car than a qualifying car at thispoint. I am happy with our progress today. The car was not that slowactually. The wind was really a factor. It was blowing pretty hard,and I think everyone had a problem with the wind. If you ran in thedraft a little bit, it would take you a couple of tenths down. I likethis track. To be honest, it's the first oval that I really enjoy --this track and Rio. If it rained tomorrow, I wouldn't have a problem. | |
 | Tecate Beer/Quaker State Patrick Racing Swift Ford |
| ADRIAN FERNANDEZ | |
| It's great tobe back here in Japan after the great memories we had here last year.Today we worked on making sure that the car we are running today wasokay. As you may know the car I had in Homestead cracked the monocoqueand basically this is a 1997 monocoque with 1998 upgrades. So,basically we wanted to make sure the car was okay. In the morningsession we were pretty careful, maybe too careful , but I wanted to makesure the tires were up to temperature before I pushed the car. We justran through a few changes this morning. In the afternoon we made a fewcorrections and we were running full tanks in the beginning and weworked our way down (on fuel) during the session and we put a few newtires on at the end to finish the session and scrub a few tires in justin case it rains. I am pretty satisfied in the way the car is workingand in the effort that my guys did in putting the car together to get ithere. Unfortunately we did not have as much time in the session as wewould have liked because of the crash with (Juan) Montoya and Michael(Andretti). Also, the Firestone tires are working really well. Theyare very durable and very consistent all the time. The work they keepdoing is remarkable. The engine is also running very strong. Ford hasmade a few changes to the engine and they are working very well. | |
 | Patrick Racing Visteon Swift Ford |
| P.J. JONES | |
| The motor is running great.We have had no problems yet this weekend and we are fast all around,even in traffic. We ran consistently in both sessions and I think weare in a great spot. We sure have a good race car. ON THE EFFECTS OFTHE HIGH WINDS AND COOL TEMPERATURES . . . "The wind didn't reallyaffect me too much. The car is working so good right now. It's kind ofhard to gear the car with the tail wind and the head wind you have goingdown the straightaway. The front straight has a tail wind and the rearstraight has a head wind which makes picking the right gearing a bittricky, but it really has not affected me that much. | |
 | Team Gordon Reynard Toyota |
| ROBBY GORDON | |
| Very nice surprise to come out of the gate this quickand find speed immediately. We had a little push in turn four thismorning due to the changing winds, but I think we did a good job ofmaking the car better this afternoon. It's very consistent right now,which I like. It's responding to small changes and it's acting like arace car. Kenny Anderson, our new engineer, is a big part of that. Hebrings a ton of great input to this team, and since we've workedtogether in the past, things just tend to click. | |