2002 Honda Indy 300

About

The 2002 Honda Indy 300 was a Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART) motor race held on October 27, 2002 at the Surfers Paradise Street Circuit in Queensland, Australia in front of 103,351 fans. It was the seventeenth round of the 2002 CART season, the twelfth running of the event, and the only race of the year to be held in Australia. Herdez Competition driver Mario Domínguez earned his first career CART win in the shortened 40-lap race. Patrick Carpentier, driving for Forsythe Racing, finished second, and Paul Tracy brought home the third position for Team Kool Green.

The race, originally scheduled to be 70 laps, was marred by extremely wet conditions. The initial start saw a multi-car crash injuring Adrián Fernández and Tora Takagi. CART officials shortened the race to 50 laps and allowed teams to repair their cars or pull out backups. After a long delay, the race was restarted on lap 3 with slightly improved conditions. Pole sitter Cristiano da Matta led the first 10 laps. Bruno Junqueira took the lead as da Matta and several other drivers took their first mandatory pit stop under caution, though he gave the lead back to da Matta on lap 18 after making his pit stop. Da Matta led the next eleven laps until he pitted again on lap 30. Michael Andretti inherited the lead thereafter, and he and his team believed they were in position to win once the race reached official race status of the full lap past the halfway point (35 laps plus one) of the original distance (70 laps), since they had already pitted once. However, CART officials made the controversial decision to wait until lap 40 to end the race, which meant that most teams would be forced to pit twice. After Andretti pitted on lap 36, Domínguez inherited the lead and led the final four laps en route to victory.