2002 CART season

Drivers and teams

Team changes

Driver changes

In-season changes

• Lack of sponsorship led to the shutdown of PWR Championship Racing after the third race in Motegi, Japan. Scott Dixon landed in a third car at Target Chip Ganassi Racing, while Oriol Servià was sidelined for the time being.
• Having already dropped the Bettenhausen name from its team name with the conclusion of the 2001 season, Herdez Competition changed their car number from 16 to 55 beginning with the fifth round at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. #16 had long been associated with Tony Bettenhausen, Jr. and his race team.
• The fifth race at Laguna Seca was the last appearance for Sigma Autosport, which, like PWR earlier in the season, found their sponsorship well run dry, leaving Max Papis without a ride.
• A run of disappointing performances and a two probation sanctions from CART Chief Steward Wally Dallenbach Sr. led to the firing of Townsend Bell from Patrick Racing after the ninth round at Cleveland. Oriol Servià drove the #20 car for the remainder of the season.
• Adrián Fernández fractured his hip in a crash in the tenth race at Vancouver and sat out the following race at Mid-Ohio. Max Papis substituted for him.
• Dale Coyne helped put together what was described as an "all-England" team named Team St. George for a one shot effort for the fifteenth race at Rockingham, England. Darren Manning was chosen to be the driver. The team used Coyne's traditional #19 car.
• After clinching the season championship by winning the sixteenth race in Miami Cristiano da Matta ran with #1 on his car for the rest of the season.
• Adrian Fernández was involved in a crash in the seventeenth race at Surfer's Paradise, Australia and suffered two thoracic fractures, which forced him to sit out the final two races of the season. Max Papis sat in for him again at Fontana and Luis Díaz substituted at Mexico City.
• Dale Coyne Racing reappeared under its own name and ran André Lotterer at the final race of the season at Mexico City.

  Rule changes

• The biggest rule change was the implementation of mandatory pit windows.
• *A maximum pit window was established meaning each car go no further than a specified number of laps without pitting. As a result there were a minimum number of pit stops per race.
• *To count as a mandatory stop, all 4 tires had to be changed. Adding fuel on a pit stop was officially optional to encourage teams to go off sequence with an early stop.
• *Failure to pit within the specified number of laps resulted in a drive-through penalty.
• *The rule closing pit road when a full course caution flag was displayed was eliminated to prevent teams missing their window due to a caution flag coming out.
• *All mandated pit stops must be completed before the white flag lap.
• *The goal of the rule was to eliminate fuel economy runs and allow drivers to run as hard as they could the entire run having all the fuel to do so. However, teams ended up changing their strategy to conserve fuel so they could release the car from their pit stops as soon as the tire changes were complete. This led to a series of incidents where cars were being released back on track before the tire changes were complete and loose wheels coming off cars once back on track. To deter this CART instituted a mid-season 1-lap penalty for any car losing a wheel after a pit stop in addition to the time lost recovering the car to remount the tire.
• Traction control was formally legalized after CART officials determined they could not successfully enforce a ban.
• Road & Street course qualifying was changed. The race weekend would feature two qualifying sessions, one on Friday and one on Saturday. The fastest driver in each session received one championship point and was guaranteed a front row start regardless of the results of the other session. Each session was 60 minutes in length, teams could complete a maximum of 15 laps per session. In addition to their weekend allotment of tires, teams were given 2 additional sets of tires per qualifying session which had to be returned to Bridgestone immediately after the session was over.
• In the event of a late race caution, CART officials were allowed to use the red flag to stop the race, clean up the crash, and attempt a green-flag finish.
• Starting at the Mid-Ohio round, cars which spun off track into the gravel trap were allowed to be pushed back on track by the safety team and get back into the race as long as there was not other significant race ending damage to the car. Previously a car stuck in a gravel trap would be ruled out of the event.

  Season summary

Schedule

Rnd	Race Name	Circuit	City/Location	Date
1	Tecate/Telmex Grand Prix of Monterrey	Fundidora Park	Monterrey, Mexico	March 10
2	Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach	Streets of Long Beach	Long Beach, California	April 14
3	Bridgestone Potenza 500	Twin Ring Motegi	Motegi, Japan	April 27
4	Miller Lite 250	Milwaukee Mile	West Allis, Wisconsin	June 2
5	Grand Prix of Monterey	Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca	Monterey, California	June 9
6	G.I. Joe's 200	Portland International Raceway	Portland, Oregon	June 16
7	Grand Prix of Chicago	Chicago Motor Speedway	Cicero, Illinois	June 30
8	Molson Indy Toronto	Exhibition Place	Toronto, Ontario	July 7
9	Marconi Grand Prix of Cleveland	Cleveland Burke Lakefront Airport	Cleveland, Ohio	July 14
10	Molson Indy Vancouver	Streets of Vancouver	Vancouver, British Columbia	July 28
11	Grand Prix of Mid-Ohio	Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course	Lexington, Ohio	August 11
12	Grand Prix of Road America	Road America	Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin	August 18
13	Molson Indy Montreal	Circuit Gilles Villeneuve	Montreal, Quebec	August 25
14	Shell Grand Prix of Denver	Streets of Denver	Denver, Colorado	September 1
15	Rockingham 500	Rockingham Motor Speedway	Corby, United Kingdom	September 14
-	German 500	EuroSpeedway Lausitz	Klettwitz, Germany	September 21
16	Grand Prix Americas	Miami Bayfront Park Street Circuit	Miami, Florida	October 6
17	Honda Indy 300	Surfers Paradise Street Circuit	Surfers Paradise, Australia	October 27
18	The 500 Presented by Toyota	California Speedway	Fontana, California	November 3
19	Gran Premio Telmex-Gigante	Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez	Mexico City, Mexico	November 17

Race results

Rnd	Race Name	Pole position	Fastest lap	Lead most laps	Winning driver	Winning team	Report
1	Tecate/Telmex Grand Prix of Monterrey	Adrián Fernández	Cristiano da Matta	Cristiano da Matta	Cristiano da Matta	Newman/Haas Racing	Report
2	Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach	Jimmy Vasser	Bruno Junqueira	Michael Andretti	Michael Andretti	Team Motorola	Report
3	Bridgestone Potenza 500	Bruno Junqueira	Tony Kanaan	Tony Kanaan	Bruno Junqueira	Target Chip Ganassi Racing	Report
4	Miller Lite 250	Adrián Fernández	Kenny Bräck	Paul Tracy	Paul Tracy	Team KOOL Green	Report
5	Bridgestone Grand Prix of Monterey Featuring the Shell 300	Cristiano da Matta	Cristiano da Matta	Cristiano da Matta	Cristiano da Matta	Newman/Haas Racing	Report
6	G.I. Joe's 200	Cristiano da Matta	Bruno Junqueira	Cristiano da Matta Kenny Bräck	Cristiano da Matta	Newman/Haas Racing	Report
7	CART Grand Prix of Chicago	Dario Franchitti	Paul Tracy	Cristiano da Matta	Cristiano da Matta	Newman/Haas Racing	Report
8	Molson Indy Toronto	Cristiano da Matta	Cristiano da Matta	Cristiano da Matta	Cristiano da Matta	Newman/Haas Racing	Report
9	Marconi Grand Prix of Cleveland Presented by U.S. Bank	Cristiano da Matta	Paul Tracy	Patrick Carpentier	Patrick Carpentier	Team Player's	Report
10	Molson Indy Vancouver	Cristiano da Matta	Cristiano da Matta	Paul Tracy	Dario Franchitti	Team KOOL Green	Report
11	CART Grand Prix of Mid-Ohio	Patrick Carpentier	Cristiano da Matta	Patrick Carpentier	Patrick Carpentier	Team Player's	Report
12	The Grand Prix at Road America featuring the Motorola 220	Bruno Junqueira	Bruno Junqueira	Paul Tracy	Cristiano da Matta	Newman/Haas Racing	Report
13	Molson Indy Montreal	Cristiano da Matta	Dario Franchitti	Dario Franchitti	Dario Franchitti	Team KOOL Green	Report
14	Shell Grand Prix of Denver	Bruno Junqueira	Kenny Bräck	Bruno Junqueira	Bruno Junqueira	Target Chip Ganassi Racing	Report
15	Sure for Men Rockingham 500	Kenny Bräck	Jimmy Vasser	Kenny Bräck	Dario Franchitti	Team KOOL Green	Report
16	Grand Prix Americas	Tony Kanaan	Christian Fittipaldi	Cristiano da Matta	Cristiano da Matta	Newman/Haas Racing	Report
17	Honda Indy 300	Cristiano da Matta	Cristiano da Matta	Cristiano da Matta	Mario Domínguez	Herdez Competition	Report
18	The 500 Presented by Toyota	Tony Kanaan	Oriol Servià	Jimmy Vasser	Jimmy Vasser	Team Rahal	Report
19	Gran Premio Telmex-Gigante Presented by Banamex/Visa	Bruno Junqueira	Shinji Nakano	Tony Kanaan	Kenny Bräck	Target Chip Ganassi Racing	Report

Final driver standings

Nation's Cup Top result per race counts towards Nation's Cup. Pos Country MTY LBH MOT MIL LAG POR CHI TOR CLE VAN MDO ROA MTL DEN ROC MIA SUR FON MEX Pts 1 Brazil 1 8 1 4 1 1 1 1 8 3 2 1 2 1 2 1 5 4 2 325 2 Canada 5 7 2 1 5 5 7 7 1 2 1 2 4 8 3 4 2 3 4 247 3 United States 12 1 14 7 7 4 12 6 2 6 3 5 5 10 7 3 9 1 11 164 4 United Kingdom 2 9 3 12 19 3 3 13 14 1 17 12 1 18 1 10 7 10 5 148 5 Mexico 4 4 5 2 9 6 10 9 9 4 11 8 6 4 11 6 1 13 13 142 6 Sweden 18 5 17 8 3 15 18 2 4 18 6 14 18 7 8 13 4 12 1 113 7 New Zealand 6 18 9 6 6 7 6 5 15 16 5 17 10 2 12 18 15 6 7 96 8 Japan 14 6 8 14 14 11 4 4 7 11 9 11 9 15 6 14 13 15 6 73 9 Spain 10 11 6 14 10 16 16 11 4 17 16 5 9 44 10 Italy 9 3 18 3 13 15 14 32 11 Germany 12 1 Pos Country MTY LBH MOT MIL LAG POR CHI TOR CLE VAN MDO ROA MTL DEN ROC MIA SUR FON MEX Pts [Chassis] Constructor's Cup Pos Chassis Pts 1 Lola 401 2 Reynard 235 Pos Chassis Pts [Engine] Manufacturer's Cup Pos Engine Pts 1 Toyota 332 2 Honda 283 3 / Ford-Cosworth 259 Pos Engine Pts Driver breakdown