The second and final day of Spring Training at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca proved to be a difficult one for Paul Tracy and the Forsythe Team. Mechanical woes, untimely red flags and traffic prevented the Forsythe Team from improving the lap time of 1m06.707s set during the first day of testing, in which Tracy was quickest overall.
The Forsythe Team spent most of the day experimenting with different geometry and suspension settings in order to further develop their understanding of their new Panoz DP01 Champ Car. During the two-day test, the #3 INDECK Car completed 136 laps, and participated in a 1-hour standing start practice at the end of each day.
Paul Tracy (#3 INDECK Cosworth/Bridgestone/Panoz)
Sixth Fastest Overall
136 Laps (2 day test)
1m06.707s / 120.779mph / 194.374kph
“Well we couldn’t’ really get into a rhythm today. Yesterday the car was quick right out of the box and we managed to get through our test plan and turn the fastest lap of the day. But today things didn’t go as well. We had a mechanical problem in the morning which kept us off the track for a while. We were experimenting with some geometry and suspension stuff in order to reduce the steering effort which was really high, so we tried some different stuff that we don’t usually try but we just could never get the handling to work the way we wanted with those changes. I had brand new tires at the end and I was just getting up to speed when I saw Bruno (Junqueira) go off on Turn 6 and after the red came out the session was over, so we didn’t really get a chance to set a fast time. â€
“But overall it was a good test, we obviously have a good car and we just have to fine tune it a little bit. We’ll see where everybody is really at when we get to Vegas. In the meantime we’ll just keep working and preparing for the Season so we can be very strong during the first few races and begin a strong pursuit for the Championship. â€
Phil LePan, Team Manager
“Even though today we weren’t as fast as yesterday, we still managed to gather a lot of data and we learned a lot from the changes that we made. There’s still some mechanical issues that we have to work on, but overall the Team has done a great job and we have a very fast car. We now conclude our pre-season testing and its time to prepare for the actual season. So we’ll head back to our shop in Indianapolis, review the data that we’ve gathered over the last three months and commence our chase for the 2007 Championship. â€
The next time that the Champ Cars hit the track will be April 6-8 for the 2007 Champ Car World Series Season Opener at the Vegas Grand Prix.
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