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Junqueira
vs. Minassian |
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Autocourse CART Yearbook 1999-2000 List Price: Our Price: $24.47 You Save:$10.48 (30%)
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Other's by Venkat |
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If everything falls into place as expected, the start of the 2001 CART FedEx season will witness a continued rivalry between two rookies graduating from the F3000 series. Only this time instead of driving for different teams, they will be Champ Car teammates. The drivers, Brazilian Bruno Junqueira and Frenchman Nicolas Minassian, battled fiercely this year for the International F3000 crown, finally won by Junqueira by a whisker over Minassian, a battle that went down to the final race of the season. To help American race fans learn a little more about these two sensational rookies form F3000 racing, this article reviews the 2000 season of both these drivers, their teams and their cars. F3000 History During the mid 80s F3000 did not exist. The racing scene in Europe had the fiercely contested F2 Championship as well as the F3 championship. Drivers graduating from the F3 Championship moved to F2 and then ultimately reached F1. But the FIA decided to eliminate F2 and start the F3000 Championship with different cars and engines that had more HP. The F3000 Championship has become very popular and many of the present crop of F1 drivers came up through the F3000 ranks. F3000 was considered the penultimate stage in a driver's career on the way up to F1. There actually were two F3000 leagues, one in Europe and the other in Japan, both running to the same specifications, except they used different engine manufacturers. Now there are three, the third being in Italy. Indy Lights cars are very similar to F3000, but they run slightly less HP, so one might say there is a 4th F3000 series. As time went on many drivers started to skip F3000 and move directly from F3 to F1. This started with the late great Ayrton Senna and later Mika Hakkinen and Jos Verstappen. Similarly in the USA, some CART Toyota Atlantic drivers skip Indy Lights and graduate directly to Champ Cars (Alex Tagliani is the latest example). The European F3000 series suffered another setback when drivers competing the Japanese version of the F3000 championship started to be noticed. Drivers like Ralf Schumacher, Eddie Irvine, Heinz Harald Frentzen and Pedro de La Rosa were veterans of Formula Nippon. (The Japanese version of F3000). European F3000 races are run on Saturday prior to the Sunday's F1 Grand Prix as a support race to F1. The races are 3/4 the distance of F1 and can be compared to the Indy Lights races that are about ½ the distance of a Champ Car race. The Cars
As with Indy Lights, the F3000 cars use a Lola Chassis, but unlike Indy Lights, which uses an old Buick engine (Buick is no longer part f the series, the engines are now owned by CART), European F3000 uses the Zytek V8 engine, a company recently acquired by Don Panoz. The Zytek V8 engine produces 470 HP at 8750 RPM and the cars weigh around 625Kgs (1,378 LBS). . The engine can't weight more than 125 kgs (275 Lbs). The cars are capable of holding 125 liters of fuel and tires (Avon) are from a single tire manufacturer. The fuel used is Elf Unleaded. Interestingly, CART is considering use of the new Zytek V8 engine for the new Indy Lights engine in 2003. Profile of the drivers
Bruno Junqueira: Junqueira, a Brazilian, is 24 years old and started his racing career in Karts. He won consecutive regional Championships in Karts in 1988 and 1989 and again in 1991. After competing in various Kart Championships he graduated to the Brazilian Formula-3 Championship' in 1994 and in his rookie season finished fourth in the Championship. He then moved to the South American F3 Championship and finished fifth in his first season. He continued racing in South America in the F3 Championship in 1996 and 1997 and was crowned the Champion in 1997. He came to Europe in 1998 as the South American F3 Champion and raced in the European F3000 Championship and finished fourteenth in his first year of competing. The 1999 season was Junqueira's big break through year. He leapfrogged to finish fifth in the Championship and was always among the front runners at every race. This landed him a test driver deal with the Williams F1 team. This gave Junqueira the opportunity to get experience driving a Formula-1 car. When Alex Zanardi was dropped for the 2000 season the Williams team decided on a driver shoot out to partner Ralf Schumacher. Junqueira was pitted against Jenson Button, a contest won by Button. Button won the seat and Junqueira continued to be the test driver at Williams. Undeterred by the setback, Junqueira won his first F3000 title in 2000 and this opened up the opportunity for him to drive the Chip Ganassi Toyota Lola for 2001.
Nicolas Minassian: Minassian, a Frenchman, is 27 years old and started his impressive racing career in Karts in 1990. He graduated to the Renault Clio Cup in 1992 and was crowned the junior champion and finished fifth in the overall championship standings. In 1993 he finished second in the French Formula Renault Championship and graduated to the French Formula-3 Championship in 1994 where he finished in sixth position in the championship. In addition to competing in the F3 championship he competed in the prestigious 24 hours Le Mans and qualified an impressive eighth position. Minassian continued to race in the French F3 Championship in 1995 and stood second, aided by three wins and seven podium finishes. In 1996 he moved over to the British Formula-3 Championship, considered the mother of all F3 Championships. He finished fourth overall in his first year of racing in Britain and secured two wins and eight podium finishes and qualified on pole for a one race. After a lull in his career in 199, the Frenchman graduated to F3000 in 1998 and stood eleventh in his rookie season. In 1999 he became force to reckon with and finished fifth, getting a win and two podium finishes. Finally in the 2000 season he competed head to head with Junqueira and finished second in the Championship by the narrowest of margins. Now it looks likely he will renew his battle with Junqueira, but this time the battlefield is different, the CART FedEx World Championship Series. Teams: Supernova: The Swede, Kenny Brack, spearheaded their 1996 campaign. The current Team Rahal driver won four races and was unlucky in that he missed the Championship title by a single point. Current BAR driver Ricardo Zonta continued the domination by the team by winning the crown in 1997 and current Champ Car Champion, Juan Pablo Montoya won for the team in 1998. As you can see, the team has had a lot of success. Nicolas Minassian and the Belgian David Saelens, were their drivers for the 2000 season. Petrobras: Junqueira's and Minassian's 2000 Season in Review Round-1 Imola: The first round of the season saw the Frenchman, Nicolas Minassian, take his second career win. Junqueira opened the season on a high note by securing Pole Position, however, Minassian took the lead and never looked back. Junqueira had to ward off a strong challenge from the Australian and Arrows F1 test driver, Mark Webber. At the finish, Junqueira managed to hold onto second, with Webber close behind in third. Round-2 Silverstone: The drivers were greeted with mud and slime created by torrential rain and the race had to be delayed because of pools of water on the track. Though pole went to the British driver, Darren Manning, who is also the BAR test drive, Australian, Mark Webber, won the race. Both the title contenders, Junqueira and Minassian, never factored in the outcome, as Junqueira only managed to finish in fifth and Minassian a lowly eleventh.
Round-3 Barcelona: During qualifying the Brazilian driver, Mario Haberfeld spun out of control at the exit of the final corner and was hit by Andrea Piccini and Nicolas Minassian. This left Minassian sore after the shunt. Another Brazilian, Enrique Bernoldi secured pole ahead of Junqueira. At the start Junqueira lost his place to Minassian's teammate, David Saelens. However, he quickly regained his position and won the race aided by Bernoldi's retirement. Minassian managed to move up the through the field, despite the shunt, and finished in second position. At this point of the Championship Junqueira's lead over Minassian was a meager two points. Round-4 Nurburgring: Rain played a big part on the outcome this day. After the poor getaway by David Saelens, a first corner melee brought ensued. After the safety car pulled into the pits and race went back green, Bas Leinders spun and clipped the back of Nicolas Minassian taking both the drivers out of the race. However, Junqueira also had his fair share of drama as he spun and languished in eighth position. As conditions worsened cars in front of him spun off and Junqueira was elevated to second position behind the unbeknown German driver, Andreas Scheld. But Junqueira didn't stay 2nd long, he seized the opportunity and passed Scheld to win the race comfortably. Round-6 Magny Cours: Minassian showed his prowess and talent on his home French circuit as he turned the race into a mere high speed procession, leading from the first corner to the checkered flag. Though Sebastian Bourdais clinched pole Minassian grabbed the lead from his compatriot at the first corner and won the race in style. To add fuel to the fire, Junqueira had a disastrous weekend. He started from ninth, worked his way up to a position to secure some points, but threw it all away by spinning at the tricky Adelaide Hairpin. He nursed his Petrobras car home in thirteenth
Round-7 A1 Ring: Minassian continued his winning streak with a big win over the Brazilian, Junqueira. Though Minassian qualified in fourth he was handed the lead when both the front row runners were slapped ten second penalties for jumping the start. Junqueira had a bad day. He qualified a disappointing twentieth, never came to terms with the car, and finished in seventh outside the points. At this point of the Championship the early lead Junqueira enjoyed had evaporated and they were now tied in the points Championship. Round-8 Hockenheim: In one of the rare circumstances that both championship contenders didn't win, the MySap.com team (McLaren F3000 team) cars clinched the top two positions with the Czech driver, Tomas Enge leading his illustrious South African counterpart, Tomas Scheckter, son of former F1 champion, Jody Scheckter. Both Junqueira and Minassian had a disastrous race as Junqueira slid into the back of David Saelens at the Ost Kurve and he took out Dino Morelli in the process. Junqueira had to pit for new nose cones and tires and any chance of finishing in the points was thwarted. He eventually dropped out with gearbox troubles. Minassian failed to capitalize on the opportunity as he finished in seventh. Hence Junqueira and Minassian were still tied for the top spot in points. Round-9 Hungaroring: Junqueira broke his mid season jinx by winning at the twisty Hungaroring circuit and he lead easily from start to finish. He dominated the weekend as he also secured pole position. Minassian's car was off the pace but managed to settle for fourth. Round-10 Spa: The final round of the Championship saw both the drivers firing all cylinders. Minassian was in a must win situation and Junqueira had to finish in the points to secure the title. However the young Spaniard, Fernando Alonso, the Minardi test driver, won the race. Ex Formula Nippon driver, Marc Goosens finished in second and they snatched any chance of title hopes from Minassian. Junqueira rode a relaxed race and finished outside the points in seventh position. However Minassian's 3rd place was not enough to overcome Junqueira's point lead and he had to settle for 2nd in the championship. Will their battle continue in the Champ series next year? Only time will tell whether Ganassi picks up both drivers. We hope so, it will make for an interesting match up. With warm regards. Venkat Go to our forums to discuss this article Comments can be sent to the author at contacts@autoracing1.com. |
Samba
takes over for Rock N' Roll 10/2/00
CART 3/4-Season Report 9/13/00 |
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