The 2001 Marlboro 500 was a Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART) motor race held on November 4, 2001, at the California Speedway, in Fontana, California. It was the 21st and final round of the 2001 CART season and the fifth annual edition of the Marlboro 500 at California Speedway. The 220-lap race was won by Newman/Haas Racing driver Cristiano da Matta who started from second position. Max Papis finished second for Team Rahal and Forsythe Racing driver Alex Tagliani came in third.
Tagliani won the pole position but was passed by Bryan Herta on the first lap. Papis moved into the lead on the fifth lap and remained there for 54 laps more than any other driver during the course of the race. Most drivers chose to run in front of the field but not take the lead because they wanted to conserve fuel. The race was reduced from its original distance of 250 laps to 220 because of fading daylight and the event was delayed by morning rain. Da Matta held off Papis at the start-finish line to win after a caution period for a crash involving Scott Dixon ended competitive racing in the event.
There were eight cautions and a CART record-breaking 73 lead changes by 19 different drivers during the course of the race. It was da Matta's third (and final) victory of the season, his first in Fontana, and the fourth of his career. Seventh-place finisher Michael Andretti moved in front of Hélio Castroneves to secure third position after the latter retired with an engine failure. 75,000 people attended the event.
Background
The Marlboro 500 was confirmed as part of CART's 2001 series schedule in August 2000. It was the fifth consecutive year the race was held in the series, and the final race of the season to be held in the United States. The Marlboro 500 was the 21st and final scheduled race for 2001 by CART, and was held on November 4 at the D-shaped California Speedway oval track, in Fontana, California. It was scheduled to last 250 laps over a distance of .
Prior to the race, Team Penske driver Gil de Ferran had secured the championship at the previous round of the season (the Honda Indy 300) and held a 28-point lead over second-place driver Kenny Bräck. Hélio Castroneves and Michael Andretti were tied on 141 points in third place, and Cristiano da Matta was fifth on 120. Honda had already secured the Manufacturers' Championship beforehand and had a points total of 332. Toyota was second on 288, eight ahead of Ford Cosworth in third. Christian Fittipaldi was the event's defending champion from the 2000 edition.
De Ferran was confident that he could be competitive and achieve a good result without needing to worry about the championship. Da Matta felt his team had learnt more from the series previous race on a superspeedway which he believed would help him in California where he wanted to win. Having moved from 16th to eighth in the points standings with a victory in Laguna Seca and a second-place finish in Germany, Papis stated that he was focused on the race and hoped to clinch his first victory in a 500-mile event despite having not managed to finish a race on a superspeedway in 2001. Bruno Junqueira was excited to race in Fontana and hoped that he could clinch his second victory of the year.
Practice There were three practice sessions preceding Sunday's race: two on Friday and one on Saturday. The first session ran for 105 minutes, the second 75 minutes, and the third 60 minutes. Conditions were foggy for the first session which cleared later in the day. Junqueira was fastest in the first practice session with a time of 31.948 seconds; Tora Takagi, Paul Tracy, Kenny Bräck, da Matta, Patrick Carpentier, Papis, Tony Kanaan, Michel Jourdain Jr. and Roberto Moreno rounded out the session's top ten drivers. Five yellow caution flags came out: the first was for Carpentier whose engine failed while entering the fourth turn, the second for Bräck after a heavy collision with the turn four outside wall. Adrián Fernández's engine failed which littered debris onto the track, Papis spun on the exit of the frontstretch and damaged the rear of his car when he hit the pit road exit barrier. A track inspection was necessitated after Castroneves' car leaked fluid onto the circuit.
In the second practice session, Bräck set the fastest time of the day with a lap of 31:676 seconds, ahead of Junqueira, Tracy. Tagliani, Memo Gidley, Shinji Nakano, Carpentier, Bryan Herta, Fernández and da Matta. The session was temporarily stopped when a track inspection was required after Fernández's right-rear tire blew, and Jourdain's engine failed after exiting turn four. Bräck was fastest in the third practice session with a lap of 31.219 seconds; Papis, da Matta, Kanaan, Tracy, Junqueira, Fittipaldi, Herta, Tagliani and Gidley completed the top ten ahead of qualifying. A track inspection stopped the session for eight minutes after several teams reported that their cars had sustained cut tires.
Qualifying Saturday afternoon's one hour qualifying session began with the slowest driver in the weekend's combined practice sessions going out first with the quickest competitor heading out last. Each driver was restricted to two timed laps. Conditions for the one-hour session were sunny and warm. Tagliani clinched his second pole position of the season and the third of his career with a time of 31.935 seconds. He was joined on the grid's front row by da Matta. Bräck qualified third, Herta fourth and Fittipaldi fifth after he made changes to make his car go faster. Papis, Jourdain, Junqueira, Jimmy Vasser and Scott Dixon rounded out the top ten fastest qualifiers. After completing his lap, Jourdain switched off his engine when smoke emitted from his car's left-hand side leaving turn two and qualifying was temporarily stopped to allow course officials to extract his car. Gidley was the fastest driver not to qualify in the top ten; his fastest time was five-tenths of a second off Tagliani's pace. Nakano, Andretti, Kanaan, Maurício Gugelmin, Oriol Servià, Tracy, Alex Barron and Takagi completed the top-20.
Casey Mears, 21st, had his car lose power on his second warm-up lap after exiting the fourth turn and stopped in turn two; he was allowed one attempt to record a timed lap as a result. Dario Franchitti and Moreno qualified in the 22nd and 23rd positions, while Castroneves took 24th. Carpentier, who qualified in 25th, was observed speeding after he exited pit road and was limited to one lap time. On his run, he went up onto the track's dirty side in turn two and removed his foot from the accelerator pedal. Fernández qualified at the back of the grid in 26th position and switched off his engine on the backstretch while on his second warm-up lap and stopped at the bottom of turn three. After qualifying, Tagliani said: "The car is very fast, the team was very quick earlier this year at Michigan and we're looking good right now. We didn't expect to qualify that fast actually, but the car was free and it was great. I think we have a good shot to stay up front with that time."
Qualifying classification + Qualifying results Driver Team Time 1 33 Forsythe Racing 31.935 228.727 — 2 6 Newman/Haas Racing 32.009 228.198 +0.074 3 8 Team Rahal 32.016 227.835 +0.125 4 77 Forsythe Racing 32.100 227.551 +0.165 5 11 Newman/Haas Racing 32.117 227.431 +0.178 6 7 Team Rahal 32.124 227.381 +0.189 7 16 Bettenhausen Racing 32.220 226.704 +0.285 8 4 Chip Ganassi Racing 32.270 226.353 +0.335 9 40 Patrick Racing 32.296 226.170 +0.361 10 18 PacWest Racing 32.330 225.933 +0.395 11 12 Chip Ganassi Racing 32.349 225.800 +0.414 12 52 Fernández Racing 32.356 225.751 +0.421 13 39 Team Motorola 32.397 225.465 +0.462 14 55 Mo Nunn Racing 32.432 225.222 +0.497 15 17 PacWest Racing 32.438 225.180 +0.503 16 1 Team Penske 32.439 225.173 +0.504 17 22 Sigma Autosport 32.468 224.972 +0.533 18 26 Team Green 32.471 224.951 +0.536 19 25 Aricero-Blair Racing 32.492 224.806 +0.557 20 5 Walker Racing 32.583 224.178 +0.648 21 66 Mo Nunn Racing 32.607 224.013 +0.672 22 27 Team Green 32.653 223.698 +0.718 23 30 Patrick Racing 32.664 223.622 +0.729 24 3 Team Penske 32.782 222.817 +0.847 25 32 Forsythe Racing 34.985 208.787 +3.050 26 51 Fernández Racing
Warm-up The drivers took to the track at 12:10 local time for a 15-minute warm-up session. It was due to run for 30 minutes but was first delayed by a light rain shower that hit the area in the early morning. Then the session was prematurely ended when Barron drove into pit road with a large amount of fluid coming out from his car. Nakano was the fastest driver with a time of 32.280 seconds which was recorded on his second timed lap. Bräck took second, and Herta rounded out the top three.
Race
Weather conditions at the start of the race were cloudy with an air temperature ranging from and a track temperature between . Approximately 75,000 people attended the event. Most of the field chose a strategy of running at the front of the pack for as long as they could without driving to the lead because it would consume more fuel than needed and thus they elected to draft behind other cars. Barron started from the back of the field because he made a pit stop to have his electronics box changed. The start of the race was delayed to 1.27 p.m. because more rain had fallen. Tagliani maintained his pole position advantage heading into the first turn. Da Matta made a pass around the outside of Tagliani to move into first but Herta got ahead of him to lead the lap. After starting 12th, Tracy had moved into second by the sixth lap, while Herta lost the first position to Papis. Da Matta reclaimed the lead by lap 10 and held a three-tenths advantage over Papis, who in turn was two-tenths in front of Tracy. Franchitti had moved up into fourth, and was 0.6 seconds ahead of Gidley in fifth.
Tracy moved into the first position three laps later with Gidley running in his draft to clinch second place. Gidley drove right and got ahead of Tracy for the position entering the first turn. Castroneves took over first place when he passed Gidley on lap 16, but lost it to Papis two laps later. Gidley reclaimed the position on the 22nd lap, but Castroneves passed him three laps later. Da Matta and Castroneves shared first place over the following two laps. Papis retook the lead from Castroneves on the 31st lap. The first caution of the race was prompted on the following lap when Bräck spun and made heavy contact with the turn two outside wall and stopped at the bottom of the corner. He was uninjured but retired from the race. All of the leaders elected to make pit stops for fuel. Papis remained the leader at the lap-45 restart, and was followed by Castroneves. Kanaan moved into the lead by lap 50, but Papis retook it on the outside of turn one on the following lap. Gidley moved back into the lead by overtaking Papis on the inside of the first turn.