a consistent challenger but only scored one win, at Cleveland's Burke Lakefront Airport street circuit avenging last seasons heartbreaking loss at the same race. This win was also the last for veteran car owner and driver Jim Hall who retired from the sport at the end of 1996. Hall's retirement also spelled the end of the Jim Hall owned Pennzoil/VDS IndyCar team. Despite rumours that he would be a driver for the new Stewart Grand Prix Formula One team, de Ferran remained in America for 1997, joining Walker Racing. De Ferran finished 1997 as runner-up to Alex Zanardi with ten top-ten finishes but failed to score a single victory. He looked on course to win the season opener at Homestead-Miami Speedway but was knocked out of the lead by Dennis Vitolo, who was a lap down from de Ferran. At the Grand Prix of Portland he lost out to PacWest Racing's Mark Blundell in the closest finish in CART history. The expected championship challenge never materialized in 1998. Unreliability, driver errors and the inferior performance of the Goodyear tires compared to the superior Firestone tires all combined to leave de Ferran 12th in the standings, again with no wins in the year. In 1999, the long-awaited breakthrough finally came as de Ferran beat Juan Pablo Montoya at Portland International Raceway to take his first win since 1996 and the Walker Racing team's first since early 1995. However that victory would mark the end of an era as both Goodyear and Valvoline both left CART as major sponsors and suppliers at the end of the 1999 season. Toward the end of that season, de Ferran and Greg Moore were signed to Marlboro Team Penske to replace Al Unser Jr. and the rotating arrangement of drivers employed after Andre Ribeiro retired. However, Moore was killed in a crash during the season finale at California Speedway and de Ferran's fellow countryman Hélio Castroneves was announced as the replacement for Moore shortly afterwards. On Saturday October 28, 2000, during CART qualifying at California Speedway, de Ferran set both the track record and closed course record for fastest lap at . As of December 2022, this stands as the fastest qualifying lap speed ever recorded at an official race meeting. He would follow this up by winning the series championship on Monday October 30th (The season finale started on the 29th but was forced to