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| Luckily, CART-Toyota/Atlantic drivers were spared by the weather today, and given the opportunity to run the Milwaukee Mile. The race had been previously scheduled for yesterday, but was postponed until today because of bad weather. Starting dead last, as a result of an accident at Friday's practice session that prevented him from qualifying, Jonathan sliced through the field in his NTN Bearings Swift to capture a 6th-place finish. In only the first 10 laps of the race, Jonathan managed to gain a total of 7 positions, finally sitting in 8th by lap 10. "I had an excellent start." Jonathan said. This morning's warm-up session went really well and I built up enough confidence in the car by the end of it that I was able to just let it all out right from the green," Jonathan said. The race was plagued by a number of re-starts and Jonathan was quick to capitalize on them. Sixth place was his after an excellent re-start on lap 20 that saw Jonathan vault past two cars. "The car was quick and handled well in the first half of the race. So, I picked up as many places as I could, taking advantage of the start and re-starts, and the car's performance at that point in the race." Midway into the race, however, Jonathan's aggressive style was mellowed by a significant understeer that developed in his car. "The car started to understeer quite a bit. I tried to remedy the problem from inside the car by adjusting the sway bars. I also adjusted the weight jacks to try to re-distribute the weight across the front-end. But the understeering continued. The car seemed to run better in the first half of the race," Jonathan said Another re-start on lap 40 meant that Jonathan was ready to trounce once again, and trounce he did, capturing 5th spot. However, this gain was short-lived as the ever-present understeer problem forced Jonathan to drop back to 6th place, where he settled until the end of the race. "I'm feeling great, Jonathan said. Our race-weekend started off rough. I was definitely looking for a podium finish this weekend, but under the circumstances, I don't think we could have asked for much better." For his next stop, Jonathan will be back in Canada, to race in the 2001 Air Canada Grand Prix in Montreal, a racecourse that Jonathan can't wait to attack. "I've raced in Montreal the past two years in the Canadian Formula Ford Championship series. I have good memories of Montreal and know the track well. It will be a nice change to go to Montreal having raced my last two races on ovals," Jonathan said. His sixth-place finish makes for a gain of eight additional points, bringing Jonathan's total points-score to 25. This translates into a significant improvement in his overall standing, and in his hunt for Rookie of the Year, pushing him from 6th to 4th position overall and making him the rookie-points-leader. Not a bad end to a race-weekend that saw Macri involved in a major accident that sidelined him from qualifying and relegated him to last position on the starting grid. If that wasn't enough, the accident left Jonathan with an injury and the NTN car extensively damaged, and in doubt as to whether it would be ready for race day, only to be brought back to life by the professional and gritty crew, quite literally, overnight. Well, all's well that ends well. |
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