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Paul Tracy came into Montreal with wins at Toronto and Vancouver in hand, and a chance at a historic first: a sweep of CART's three Canadian races. A genuine F1 course, 2.7 miles in length, Montreal is the most challenging of the three venues, with long straights emptying into tight bends, which place a premium on braking performance. As luck would have it, Tracy struggled with his setup under braking all weekend, qualifying eighth. But the Rocketsports Lola of fellow Canadian Alex Tagliani was superb in that department, taking the pole at 1:19.665 (122.418 mph).
The long straights and slow corners also created fuel mileage problems, as teams struggled to make CART's 20-lap maximum fuel stop window. In the early laps, Tagliani was unable to conserve enough fuel, and team owner Paul Gentilozzi finally instructed his driver to run flat out. "When you have a racehorse, you have to let him run,'' Gentilozzi said after the race. Tagliani would lead through the first two fuel stops despite being forced to pit early both times, and pulled out a small margin. But a caution flag on lap 50 of 75 undid the ad-lib strategy as Tiago Monteiro made a hapless charge into the Turn 10 hairpin and crashed into Ryan Hunter-Reay.
From there the race was under the control of Michel Jourdain Jr., running a more conservative fuel strategy. Jourdain scored his second career win, both coming this season. The ...
Source: HighBeam Research, Race Report.(Motorsports)