Coletti adapting to oval racing

Stefano Coletti

Stefano Coletti had never run a race car on an oval before arriving at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway this May. "I was expecting fast, but not that fast," said the former GP2 champion.

"I was thinking after the first couple of days that maybe driving the oval was hard to do and I would not be able to learn it."

But his KV Racing team knew how to cure the first time jitters.

The team put more downforce in his car and he went out and ran 90 laps at a slower speed. Stefano got a good feel for what to do with the car and thought to himself, hey this is easier than I first thought. On Fast Friday, when the teams got extra boost, he went out and did a lap of 227 and he was surprised at how fast he went! But he liked the new found speed and has settled in to the car now.

His mindset for the race is to survive the crashes and save fuel for the first 150 laps. He has never really run in traffic on the oval, so Sunday should be new and exciting for him. He will be pushing hard in the last 50 laps to see if he can win his first Indy 500. Lucille Dust reporting from Indy for AR1.com