Vasser once again fastest Ford.

As he was last weekend in Toronto, Team Rahal's Jimmy Vasser was the fastest of the five Ford powered CART FedEx contenders on the opening day of practice and qualifying at Cleveland's Burke Lakefront Airport.

With the Reynard chassis used by Team Players' duo Patrick Carpentier and Alex Tagliani currently lagging behind the dominating Lola, it has fallen to Jimmy Vasser to carry Ford's hopes for much of the first half of the 2002 season and the 1996 CART Champ once again headed the 'Blue Oval' brigade in Provisional qualifying for Sunday's Marconi Grand Prix of Cleveland.

Although the sturdy Cosworth unit in the back of the American's Team Rahal Lola-Ford has not been a match for Toyota so far in 2002, Vasser lapped the bumpy 2.106-mile airport course in a best time of 58.477-seconds to place sixth on the Provisional grid.

Although Vasser's best time was more than eight-tenths of a second slower than Provisional polesitter Cristiano da Matta, the Shell sponsored driver was less than four tenths slower than provisional outside front row man Tony Kanaan.

"It's nice to see us be fast off the trailer for the first time in several races," said Vasser who finished sixth in Toronto last Sunday. "The car feels pretty good and Ford Cosworth has made a lot of big gains in their traction control. (Cosworth engineer) Dave Gudd is here again this weekend and he's helped us to sort out the problems we've been having with the electronics and the software. The chassis feels really good, but (Cristiano) da Matta is way out in front of everybody else."

Fighting hard with the outnumbered Reynard chassis, Payer's Forsythe's Patrick Carpentier qualified tenth fastest on Friday in the second fastest of the Ford cars with a 58.688-seconds best. However the Canadian driver was upbeat about his chances in final qualifying on Saturday.

"I'm pretty happy with where we're at, but I didn't get one clear lap the entire session," he stated. "The guys with Ford and Cosworth have really made some good progress improving the consistency of their traction control system and I've got to say that it was fantastic today. We had a problem with the popoff valve during the afternoon and it absolutely killed our first stint. Then I got blocked twice on my final set of tires and just couldn't find clear track to try and put down a good lap."

Of the other Ford runners, Alex Tagliani ended the day in 12th position, Michel Jourdain Jr 15th and Team Herdez driver Mario Dominguez 17th.

"We were pretty good this morning, but we were having some problems with the brakes this afternoon," mused Jourdain Jr while his rookie countryman added. "This is a very difficult track to drive and I think I'm still trying to figure it out."

Final figuring time rolls around on Saturday afternoon with the final qualifying hour by which time the bumpy, abrasive and flat circuit will have gained a significant amount of extra grip.