Fittipaldi still happy with limited mileage.

A cold, wet, bumpy Florida airfield in December may not be the ideal place to test a brand new Champ Car but despite the conditions, which conspired to ruin most of day one and nearly all of day two, Christian Fittipaldi felt he had "learned a lot" about the new 2001 Lola-Toyota that he will campaign with Cristiano Da Matta in next year's Fed-Ex Series.

The Brazilian driver, who won the 2000 season finale at Fontana, was greatly impressed with Toyota's new 'Phase 7' engine after using a Ford powerplant last season and felt that the combination of him and Da Matta, who has valuable experience of using Toyota engines after his two season's with the now-defunct PPI Motorsports outfit.

Fittipaldi took advantage of the wet conditions on the second day to gain some preliminary ideas for a wet weather set-up and although temperatures remained too low to put sufficient heat into the tyres, there were no signs of handling problems with the new Lola chassis that has already run well in the hands of Team Rahal driver Kenny Brack.

Sharing the 1.66-mile track with the Penske and Patrick teams for most of the test, Fittipaldi conducted most of the base set-up work for the team as Da Matta does not get his first run with the car until next year.

In his first season out of Michael Andretti's shadow within the Newman-Haas outfit, the colourful Brazilian will be hoping that he can stay healthy for the full season and add to his current tally of two CART victories. Both Fittipaldi and Da Matta are hungry for success and are looking forward to working with one another as the team look to win the title that could have been theirs in 2000 had it not been for the legendary bad luck of Michael Andretti.

"There is a new dynamic in the team," added Fittipaldi. "I think Cristiano and I will work together very well in 2001, which will help the team score more wins and be a contender for the Championship.