NEW YORK, NY (November 8, 2001) - Gil de Ferran wrapped up his second consecutive CART FedEx Championship in 2001, beating early leader Kenny Brack for the ultimate crown. During his Media Tour in New York City, I sat down with him and talked to the two-time champion about his late-season resurgence and how he felt about his success with Team Penske:
KEVIN MA: Congratulations on your second championship. Once again you had a relatively consistent first half but your championship run didn't come full throttle until your victory at Rockingham. Just how big it was for you to beat Kenny Brack on the last lap at Rockingham 500 in which led to your second consecutive championship?
GIL de FERRAN: It was certainly a very different championship than last year. Even though on the championship points we were far back at the beginning of the year, I had the confidence and tried to tackle one challenge at a time and I made it. Certainly the championship was very exciting and it had been like that for the whole year -- no moment I thought it was lost and no moment I thought it was won.
KM: Brack's Lola Ford package pretty much dominated the season on ovals, what's your comment on beating him on an oval at Rockingham?
GdF: They [Lola Ford] were very good on the ovals, that's why Rockingham was very important. Let's put it this way -- our confidence was really high especially on the road courses, but in Rockingham we didn't really expect we were going to win. In the end we did it and the victory really built up our confidence for the remaining of the season.
KM: If Rockingham was the turning point of the 2001 CART FedEx Championship, how do you see your first half of the season, where Penske had a superb chassis (Reynard-Penske) on road courses, but your teammate Helio Castroneves seemed to be able to capitalize it with early victories.
GdF: Since the beginning of last year we were more successful in developing the road course cars than the oval cars. The road course cars had a lot of speed and at the start of the season Helio really capitalized with his. My car had a lot of speed too but it seemed like I had a lot of bad racing luck at the same time. It didn't really go our ways at the early part of the season and then we couldn't transform what we had with good results. A lot of people ask me what is it to make the car strong at the racetrack - there is not one thing in particular - it was a long, focused development of a car done for few years and our cars were developed in the right direction.
KM: Tough question of the day - Would you ever trade your CART Championship for an Indy 500 victory? [Castroneves won the 85th Indianapolis 500 in May, de Ferran finished 2nd for a Penske 1-2]
GdF: Probably not. I don't think I would trade for it because I will get my chance again. My son said you get what you get and don't get upset. I hope I will win an Indy 500 before my career is over.
KM: Did your warm-up race in Phoenix back in March help your Indy run?
GdF: Racing in Phoenix was absolutely necessary in preparation for Indy 500. Our team really excelled after the preparation race in Phoenix.
KM: I don't know about Roger Penske's plan for next year … [either to stay in CART or move the whole operation to Indy Racing League, as suggested by rumors]
GdF: Oh, neither do I.
KM: IF that happens, are you going to miss racing on road courses.
GdF: No doubt about it. Certainly I am a road racer at heart -- I grew up on road courses but I will trust Roger's judgment for the best interest of the team.
KM: Last week at Fontana, I don't know if it was just me, but for some reasons I felt the race wasn't as exciting as suggested despite all the passing and drafting. As a driver in the driver seat yourself, with the updated Handford device, do you think the race relied too much on drafting? The cars seemed stick on the road at the corners and I felt you guys had 'too much' passing on the superspeedway. What's your opinion?
GdF: I do not like the new specs for Fontana as well as Michigan. Certainly it was very exciting to watch but when you drove the race, it was all about drafting and conserving fuel - pretty much a waiting game.
KM: I am going to try this again. Where are we going to see Gil de Ferran next year?
GdF: For sure I am racing next year! Roger obviously had all the success in racing and I believe whatever he does is for the best interest of the team.
KM: Did you thank Max Papis?
GdF: Why?
KM: He took out his teammate [Kenny Brack] at Michigan, which made your championship run a little easier.
GdF: Well, he almost took me out at Rockingham!
KM: Finally, going back to Rockingham, how important for you to win the inaugural race over there especially you pretty much spent most of your racing career in Europe.
GdF: It was big. England is like my second home and my wife is from there. A lot of her family came to the race and I also had a lot of friends coming over, so it was like homecoming for me.
After the media luncheon at the Hard Rock Café, de Ferran made an appearance in the Late Show with David Letterman [Letterman is a co-owner of Team Rahal, and his driver Kenny Brack lost his championship to de Ferran]. The next day, de Ferran took time to tour the 'Ground Zero' [World Trace Center disaster site], and presented a $500,000 check on behalf of the CART community for the Twin Towers Relief Fund to Lawrence Levy, deputy counsel to mayor Rudolph Giuliani, in CBS the Early Show.
