Dixon hoping his luck holds for Indy

The former IRL champion has been the pace-setter for much of the IndyCar series season and his Ganassi Racing team dominated qualifying for the Indy 500.

But while he won the opener at Miami-Homestead, the Kiwi has since seen leads wiped out by late-race yellows and varying fuel strategies in the other three races in the run up to Indianapolis.

When asked whether he planned to try and control the Indy 500 from the front on Sunday, Dixon told autosport.com: "That's the thing that's really hurt us this year, I think. If you look at Japan and at Kansas, that's what we did, try to lead laps and stay out front and fuel strategy killed us at the end.

"I just hope that the luck rolls with us this month, I guess it has sort of already, but I'll probably end up being more conservative and try to save a bit of fuel and see how the car is one or two cars back. I know Dan [Wheldon]'s gonna want to lead a lot of laps..."

Dixon admitted that he couldn't believe how well the build-up and qualifying had gone for Indianapolis, and added that he would be happier when Sunday comes and he could just focus on the race.

"I'm just trying not to talk about how well we've been doing as I think we can jinx it pretty easy," he said.

"History shows that the quick car doesn't always win, especially at this place. I don't know, I just want to get in the race - then we'll know what happens

"It's been a good month," he added. "I keep waiting for something to go wrong, but even when we've had a bad day by the end of the day the car's been pretty decent, pretty quick, and we've been able to adapt well, so it's been smooth. Uncanny smooth."