Courtesy of SpeedCenter, reproduced by permission
http://www.speedcenter.com/


De Ferran Wins At Cleveland
Pit Stop Strategy Pays Off
By Jim DeFord

(c)1996 SpeedCenter Internet Publishing, Inc.


CLEVELAND (June 30, 1996) - In a race dominated by pit stop strategy,
the Hall Racing Team made the right decisions at the right time and held
off a late-race dash by Alex Zanardi to win the Medic Drug Grand Prix of
Cleveland.

"I know it was a moment when he was going to try to overtake me," said
de Ferran. "I came up on slower traffic and gave up some momentum.
I gave him the outside line ... deep ... deep and to his credit he
tried to take it. I just concentrated my best and tried not to make a
mistake."

Zanardi pressured de Ferran for the last two laps of the race. Gil was
running "full lean" on the fuel mixture to make it to the end of the
race and the gamble paid off.

Jim Hall was asked how much fuel was left in the car, "I think I could
have had it for a cocktail. It wasn't much."

Even though it was pretty much obvious that Zanardi was faster than
de Ferran, he could not make the pass stick when Gil was slowed by
Johannson.

"I tried, I think I could (pass de Ferran)," Zanardi commented. "I was
obviously quicker than Gil at the end, but he's obviously very strong
and very tough to beat. He left me an opening, and I tried to take it.
(To de Ferran) I'm happy for you, but a little bit disappointed for me."

Al Unser Jr. gets the hard-charger award for this race after starting
16th and finishing 4th, cutting Vasser's lead to a mere 3 points. Vasser
has 102 points, Unser is second with 98 and de Ferran now occupies 3rd
with 92 points.

Vasser has produced only a handful of points since the U.S. 500 and had
an absolute horrible race today.

"This was just a bad race all around," said Vasser. "We wanted to make
it a two-stop race instead of a three-stop, but I made a mistake. I went
just a little wide and got off-line In the switch-back (Turns 3 and 4)
and caught two cones (actually three) on the exit of the corner. I'm not
sure why (the cones) were there, but one ended up in my radiator, and
the other on the front wing. the engine started to get a little hot and
I had to come in."

Greg Moore picked his way through the field and finished on the podium
in 3rd place and moves up the 6th place in the points.

"This says a lot for our crew," Moore said. "They did a great job. We
planned a two-stop race; we thought some other guys might have to do
three. We just didn't have enough for Gil and Alex today."

Regarding the incident with Eddie Lawson and Parker Johnstone, Eddie was
not happy at all with Parker's move on the inside of turn 1; a move very
similar to the one that took out de Ferran and Pruett in 1995.

"Well, I'm not real happy right now," Eddie groaned. "We picked up a
couple of spots at the start of the race and the car was running great.
It's just too bad that this had to happen. Parker and I were in the
middle of Turn 1, and he hit me from behind and knocked my front wheel
off when he attempted to pass. It's just not necessary to do that. With
all the power the Honda has, he could have picked a better spot to try
that. I'm just really sorry for the team, I felt that we could have
walked away with a top 10 finish."

But, Parker basically called it a race incident.

"It was one of those things," Parker said. "Unfortunately, I was stuck
in a line of cars where I was only marginally faster. Eddie (Lawson) and
I were fighting for territory. I thought Eddie left the inside open a
bit so I got inside, but he turned down into the apex. I got hard on the
brakes, but we hit. I'm sorry for my team and all the Motorola people
who came out here this weekend."

Michael Andretti led much of the race, due to out-of-sequence pitstops.
A sequence that would bite him late in the race before going out with
drive line failure.

"Considering where we started and the way we battled ourselves back,"
Andretti said, "it's a real shame not to finish this race on the podium.
We had at least a third, who knows what else we could have done. It was
a really tough race to come home with nothing. Something in the drive
train went. Every time I hit it, the car went sideways. As I came off of
turn one, it just went."

"We were right there despite being out of pit sequence. For some reason,
all of the fuel didn't go in on my first stop. My team decided to make
two short stops so that I would have fresh tires and hopefully catch a
yellow. I didn't know I was out of sequence until they told me to come
in the third time. It was definitely a tough race. We really needed
the points to stay in the top-three and make up some ground on Jimmy.
Dropping to fifth puts more pressure on us for Toronto."

So, what had started out to look like a hands-down championship for
Jimmy Vasser, now goes to Toronto with the points battle really
tightening up among the top three.