It was the 20th and penultimate round of the 2001 CART season, the 11th iteration of the Honda Indy 300 and the last race of 2001 to be held outside the United States.

Da Matta assumed the lead and remained there for the remainder of the race to achieve his second victory of the season and the third of his career.

The result won Ferran his second consecutive CART Drivers' Championship as Kenny Bräck could not match his points total this late in the season.

[6] The chairman of the race Geoff Jones stated, "CART's outlook has been business as usual, they won't be bowing to terrorism.

He achieved consecutive wins at the Rockingham 500 and the Grand Prix of Houston in the second half of the season to claim the points lead.

[5] Although he had not completed a single lap of the Surfers Paradise circuit in 1999 and 2000, de Ferran said he was aware that the race would be of a significant performance to the title battle noting, "The situation is looking relatively good for Marlboro Team Penske, but it's not decided by any means.

Adrián Fernández, Roberto Moreno, Christian Fittipaldi, Cristiano da Matta, Patrick Carpentier, Bryan Herta, Memo Gidley and Michel Jourdain Jr. filled positions three to ten.

The first red flag was waved for two minutes as Scott Dixon lost traction at the rear of his vehicle and went broadside into the turn one chicane.

Carpentier spun for a second time at turn seven and briefly went airborne after driving over a kerb, breaking a front suspension wishbone.

Da Matta ran deep at the turn fourteen hairpin and stalled, stopping the session for four minutes as course officials restarted his car.

The green flag was waved by series starter Jim Swintal 50 minutes after the session began to signal the start of practice at racing speeds.

[19][20] The rain continued until 02:00 Australian Eastern Standard Time (UTC+10:00) and the track was entirely dry with sunny skies before the start of the third practice session.

A second red flag was necessitated when Tora Takagi slid through the left-hand turn four and glanced the right-hand barrier with his vehicle's right-front corner.

The final red flag was needed with 15 minutes left when Herta ran out of fuel and stalled leaving the fourth turn.

[21] De Ferran led the third practice session with a late lap time of 1 minute, 33.511 seconds, followed by Moreno, Franchitti, Castroneves, da Matta, Alex Tagliani, Max Papis, Oriol Servià, Vasser and Nakano.

[14][23] Vasser was the first driver to record a benchmark lap when the first of five red flags was necessitated for Takagi who slid straight across the turn eight left-hander and into the right-hand tyre wall, damaging his car's right-front corner.

Papis caused the final stoppage when he slid into the turn eleven tyre wall, removing his car's front-left wheel.

Bräck qualified 13th after changing his car's front wheel and front-left suspension wishbone due to damage from an accident on his first lap.

[14][30] Gugelmin was cleared to partake in the event by CART director of medical affairs Steve Olvey following fitness tests.

[36] On the lap, the first caution was displayed when Mears tried to overtake Gidley on the right but braked too late and locked his tyres to avoid striking the rear of Herta's car.

De Ferran and Moreno began pulling away from the rest of the field, increasing their lead over da Matta to 3.473 seconds by the start of lap ten.

Da Matta in turn drew clear from Tracy and Franchitti as Tagliani could not match the Team Green cars' pace.

Franchitti sought to recover lost ground when he glanced the turn four left wall and spun under heavy acceleration leaving the corner.

[32][36][40] CART chief steward Chris Kneifel barred entry to the pit lane to all racers until the pace car picked up the race leader.

[35] Two laps later, Junqueira struck the right-hand barrier going into turn three and, onto a nearby run-off area and retired due to car damage.

[42] De Ferran finished fourth to win the CART Drivers' Champion for the second successive year as Bräck could not catch his points total with one race remaining.

"[40] Andretti congratulated de Ferran on his championship victory but had mixed feelings over finishing second, "It was a pretty good day.

"[40] After finishing the race, de Ferran began celebrating his second consecutive CART Drivers' Championship, earning him $1 million.

[35] During the celebration, team owner Roger Penske commended de Ferran's perseverance, "Gil did a super job.

"[45] De Ferran stated he was "living in a dream" and saw his CART success as comparable to winning the Formula One World Championship, "Certainly, my career was all geared toward going F1, but I can't complain because any driver wants to drive for an operation such as Penske or (F1 front-runners) Williams, Ferrari and McLaren.