De Ferran looking for better Long Beach luck

Mike Harris

Sunday, April 16, 2000 | 2:58 a.m.

LONG BEACH, Calif. - If ever a race owed a driver a victory, it's the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach and Gil de Ferran.

The Brazilian outdueled former CART FedEx Series champions Jimmy Vasser and Juan Montoya on Saturday to earn his third pole in six years of racing on the temporary street course.

But de Ferran has never finished better than fifth on the downtown circuit, thanks to some horrendous luck.

In 1996, he started from the front of the field and led 100 of 105 laps before being victimized by a disconnected turbocharger hose that ended his day and gave the win to Vasser.

Asked what kind of a race he expected Sunday, de Ferran joked, "Hopefully, I'm going to disappear into the lead and make this the most boring race in the history of Long Beach."

Vasser, sitting alongside, interrupted, saying, "Yeah, just like in '96."

De Ferran winced and replied, "Don't remind me. It took me two years to forget that."

In 1998, de Ferran led a race-high 51 laps, but went out while leading with 11 laps remaining due to a transmission failure.

The 32-year-old driver is hoping that a change of teams over the winter - moving from Walker Racing to Marlboro Team Penske - also will change his Long Beach luck.

Although the Penske team has fallen on hard times the past few seasons, Roger Penske's drivers have won this race four times - Danny Sullivan (1992), Paul Tracy (1993) and Al Unser Jr. (1994-95).

A victory by de Ferran would end Target/Chip Ganassi Racing's string of four straight Long Beach wins - Vasser (1995), Alex Zanardi (1996-97) and Montoya (1999).

In fact, it would give end a victory drought dating to September of 1996 for Penske, whose team is still seeking its 100th CART win.

If qualifying is any indication that things are turning around, Penske could be back in victory lane Sunday.

De Ferran's fast lap of 104.969 mph Saturday was good enough to give him his second pole in three tries this season and the eighth of his career. After finishing sixth in the season-opener in Homestead, Fla., de Ferran also qualified fifth last Saturday for the snow-postponed race in Nazareth, Pa.

"The team is really pumped up," de Ferran said. "It's obviously been a tough couple of seasons. Every since I signed up, I could tell they are really committed, really focused."

Although teammates Zanardi and Montoya raced to championships each of the past two seasons, Vasser also has struggled in recent seasons and is off to a solid start this year.

After taking the second spot in the 25-car field Saturday with a lap of 104.645, Vasser said, "I never thought I was out of the saddle the last couple of years. My side of the team was just missing some things, just down a little on engineering."

He has the same engineer, Julian Robertson, but the difference is that Robertson now has the help of four newly hired engineers.

"Morris Nunn was our chief engineer last year and he would fly to his resort home on the golf course in Florida every week and leave Julian in charge of everything," Vasser said. "He was just spread too thin.

"Don't get me wrong. I love Morris. He's a great friend and sorely missed. But now Julian is able to spend more time on the car and less worrying about everything else. It's made a big difference."

Montoya, whose victory here last year was the first of seven wins that carried the 24-year-old Colombian to the title in his rookie year, was third at 104.213.

Asked what kind of race he expects Sunday on the tight, demanding 1.968-mile, 11-turn circuit, Montoya said, "Same as last year. Save on fuel and when someone makes a mistake, you go for it."

Adrian Fernandez, who won the provisional pole Friday with a lap of 103.223, improved to 104.178 but slipped to fourth. He was followed by Bryan Herta at 104.170, Homestead winner Max Papis at 104.057 and his Team Rahal teammate Kenny Brack at 103.744.