Luck plays a role in first St-Petersburg qualifying sessions for team Player's
source: Team Player's St. Petersburg, Florida, February 21, 2003 Luck went both ways for Team Player's drivers Patrick Carpentier and Paul Tracy on Friday in the first qualifying session for the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg, the opening race of the season in the Champ Car World Series. Carpentier used up his allotment of laps by the midway point of qualifying, and that turned out to be a stroke of good fortune when two red flags in the final 10 minutes of the 40-minute session all but ended attempts to put in fast laps. Carpentier clocked a quick lap of 1 minute, 2.350 seconds (104.276 mph/167.816 km/h) and it was good for the fifth fastest time on the 1.806-mile street course on the St. Petersburg waterfront. Tracy, meanwhile, had headed into the pits for a fresh set of tires and some wholesale changes on the car just prior to Roberto Moreno's off-track spin that brought out the first red flag, with about 10 minutes left in the session. When a second red disrupted the session shortly after it returned to green, Tracy was only able to run two laps and could not improve on his time of 1:03.031 (103.149 mph/166.002 km/h). That left Tracy 10th overall in his Team Player's qualifying debut. Rookie Sebastien Bourdais of France collected a point in the standings and assured himself of a front-row position for Sunday's race when he toured the circuit in a time of 1:01.676 (105.415 mph). His teammate Bruno Junqueira of Brazil, was second, just over two-tenths of a second off the pace. Canadian Alex Tagliani had the ninth fastest lap (1:02.822 and 103.492 mph).
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