2001 CART - Test #1 completed.

[RedEyes504]

Battenhausen will test Top Speed, Michael's instructions are go all out and go as fast as he and the car possibly can

[Bleu]

How often there are tests?

Assuming there will be other tests later, I go for top speed. Otherwise I choose acceleration.

[Rabbi Gordon]

How often there are tests?

Assuming there will be other tests later, I go for top speed. Otherwise I choose acceleration.

There will be 3 more. One street, one road course and one special at Spa.

[Normal32]

I go for speed.

[Rabbi Gordon]

Mid-season test #1

The first testing session of the year kicks out in NASCAR country at Charlotte, North Carolina.

Everyone will start with a 50% completion of their objective, the better a driver runs, better the percentage can be. (RNG will play here too) Crashing will reduce the percentage though.
The car (or skills) will be upgraded by the percentage of the upgrade your drivers earned. So if 100% is completed, then it will be upgraded by the most amount possible, if 75% is earned, then it'll be 3/4 of the full upgrade and so on.

As they failed to post a testing schedule, Walker and PacWest will go for top speed and reliability respectively (both RNG'd) and will be penalized for the first 15 minutes of the 2 hour session.

Leading the teams after the first 2 races is somewhat surprisingly, Patrick Racing. It's mainly due to Fittipaldi being really good in those 2 races and both cars surviving the Mexico carnage.
They are testing consistency, which they don't really lack.
Moreno is instructed to go hard, which he does, but that still doesn't make him a good oval driver. His final position is 21st, having suffered from engine woes.
Fittipaldi does a bit better, but he mostly places his focus on not crashing, he ends up 11th.
Patrick completion: 68%

Second in points at the moment is Green, thanks to de Ferran showing speed and consistency in both races so far. Wheldon though is one of the only 5 drivers yet to score.
In order to improve his overall performance Wheldon is the one running the most laps during the test. He shows his oval powers and finishes testing in the pretty good 9th place.
De Ferran is keeping it quiet and helps Wheldon develop. He ends up just one place above the rookie in 8th.
Green completion: 87%

Rahal is third, mostly due to da Matta winning the season opener. They certainly have the pace, but lacking some in reliability, which they'll focus on during this test.
da Matta ran really conservative and ended up 14th.
Kenny Brack pushed hard, as instructed and ended up 3rd, but wrecked once and was involved in an other incident too.
Rahal completion: 89% (96%-7% for the incidents)

With both drivers finishing in the top 6 once Mo Nunn is 4th and is here to test top speed in order to help them in the upcoming oval races.
Both the drivers push the car to its limits and over it. With 4 wrecks Mo Nunn's cars are the ones in most incidents. Gugelmin is not really an oval specialist and with the wrecks he only ends up 22nd. Dixon fares much better, but still finds the wall once. Scott ends in P10.
Mo Nunn completion: 63% (74%-11% for various incidents)

Forsythe had an inconsistent start to the season and they are here to improve it. Paul Tracy who is instructed to be a bit less Paul Tracy ignores it, because he is Paul Tracy and goes balls out. He manages to find the wall once, but his laps are still good enough to finish on the top. Tracy won the test session.
Teammate Buddy Lazier had some difficulty adapting back to road courses, but here he can shine again. One of the 3 drivers to have raced here before, he uses his knowledge of the track to close up on Tracy's performance and end up 5th.
Forsythe completion: 97% (100%-3% for contact)

Newman-Haas is 6th so far thanks to an amount of on-track incidents involving Kanaan mostly. Therefore, they are here for consistency.
Kanaan tries his best and manages to complete his objective of grabbing a top 10 placing in 7th.
Junqueira goes with a conservative setup, but gets caught up in a wreck. He ends up in 15th place.
Newman-Haas completion: 80% (82%-2% for damage)

Fernandez has lacked a bit in speed, but compensated for it with good strategy and clean drivers and is sitting in 6th in team rankings, tied with Newman-Haas.
Both Servia and Fernandez ran with neutral setups getting consistent, relatively good lap times and ended up back-to-back in the midfield. 16th and 17th place are theirs.
Fernandez completion: 70%

As expected, the top one car entry is Andretti's own team sitting in joint 8th place. Michael had very good speed in both the races so far and he is looking to improve his consistency after wrecking out from what would have been a win in Long Beach. This time, he was a bit underwhelming and only placed 13th.
Andretti completion: 67%

The better of the two surprisingly lowly ranked powerhouses, Penske has the speed for sure, but lacked seriously in consistency which they will test here.
Castroneves promised to pull himself together and ran clean and clear all day, finishing just a few thousandths behind Tracy in 2nd. On the other hand Franchitti failed to complete his objective and placed amongst the top midfield runners once again in 12th.
Penske completion: 85%

PacWest had some off-track difficulties after Saelens's great run, but made it to the test.
Carpentier and Saelens tested reliability and ended up near the back in 19th and 26th respectively. Saelens had problems getting accustomed to ovals, but stated that he leaned a lot and will to better, cometh Texas.
PacWest completion: 61%

THE surprise of the year, albeit not exactly a positive one: Ganassi With only 3 points to their name, the former juggernaut lacked both pace and reliability with Fisher and while Papis was fast, he always got the short end of the things around him. They decided to go for speed, as a good amount of oval racing is coming up.
Max earned some much-needed redemption and got the car up to a neat 4th place. Fisher, even though this is her specialty, struggled again and at the end finished only 20th fastest.
Ganassi completion: 83% (86%-3% for contact)

Bettenhausen and Sigma had the problem of being relatively slow, for Sigma it is unexpected, as Zanardi showed great speed during the offseason.
Here, Jourdain struggled with getting the car up to speed and Zanardi had problems with finding a rhythm.
Alex is 18th and Michel is 24th.
Bettenhauen completion: 64%
Sigma completion: 69%

Walker had a driver here with no CART experience at all. Jim Guthrie was getting accustomed to the car and slowly built his pace up. He got 23rd fastest after testing for top speed.
Walker completion: 67% (70%-3% for a wreck)

Coyne wasn't the last placed team after 2 rounds, but one of the 2 yet to score. The drivers were instructed to listen to Bonnie Tyler, which they did conscientiously.
Newcomer with a famed name in open wheel circles, Casey Mears got a good start in the awful machine he was driving and finished the day 25th. Minassian was not too far off the pace, but still finished back of the pack in 27th place.
Coyne completion: 65%

Having failed to finish the first two races, Arciero is unranked in the championship and quite obviously trying to improve reliability with former AAR competitor Alex Barron.
Barron looks to be a great choice for an oval driver, as he squeezes everything out of the car and ends up 6th on the timesheet!
Arciero completion: 91% (95%-4% for contact)

That's it for the 1st test.

Results overview:
1. Paul Tracy
2. Helio Castroneves
3. Kenny Brack
4. Max Papis
5. Buddy Lazier
6. Alex Barron
7. Tony Kanaan
8. Gil de Ferran
9. Dan Wheldon (R)
10. Scott Dixon (R)
11. Christian Fittipaldi
12. Dario Franchitti
13. Michael Andretti
14. Cristiano da Matta
15. Bruno Junqueira (R)
16. Adrian Fernandez
17. Oriol Servia
18. Alex Zanardi
19. Patrick Carpentier
20. Sarah Fisher (R)
21. Roberto Moreno
22. Mauricio Gugelmin
23. Jim Guthrie (R)
24. Michel Jourdain, Jr.
25. Casey Mears (R)
26. David Saelens (R)
27. Nicolas Minassian (R)

[Salamander]

Paul Tracy who is instructed to be a bit less Paul Tracy ignores it, because he is Paul Tracy and goes balls out. He manages to find the wall once, but his laps are still good enough to finish on the top. Tracy won the test session.

Seriously though, Paul, just make sure we get one decent lap in qualifying. Then you can do whatever you want the rest of the weekend, just get that one lap.

[Normal32]

In order to put less pressure on Fisher, we would like to enquire the services of Alex Tagliani for the road/street courses.

[Rabbi Gordon]

In order to put less pressure on Fisher, we would like to enquire the services of Alex Tagliani for the road/street courses.

Alex is asking for the modest sum of 1 million. He is hoping to impress and earn a full-time place in the team for next year.

Fisher's reaction:
1-25: Ragequit
26-100: Being the sensible woman she is, she sees the situation and accepts the offer.
62
Sarah is happy to learn from Tags.

So it will be one million.

[Rabbi Gordon]

Just a heads up: This is not dead, but at the moment I have to focus on my studies and my girlfriend.