Montoya: No pressure to win again

The Colombian arrives at Sonoma following a difficult last couple of weeks, where he has finished 38th both at Pocono and Michigan, due to an incident in the first and severe handling issues in the latter.

Despite that and his record at the 1.99-mile road course, Montoya is shrugging off any pressure to repeat his victory from last year, knowing that his team are currently going through a difficult stage from which they are trying to recover.

"Last year, I felt a ton of pressure heading into Infineon because everyone expected me to run well and win because of my background," Montoya said. "It was also the headquarters of my sponsor Texaco/Havoline.

"This year, I don't feel any pressure. We are focused on making our race cars and our race team better."

The Colombian tested at the Virginia International Raceway road course with his team a couple of weeks ago and said to be happy with how they ran and what they found in terms of his cars' set-up along with his new crew chief Brian Pattie.

"We had a great test at VIR a couple of weeks ago and we found a few things that should help us this weekend," Montoya added. "Our goal is to run well, and if we have a shot at the win obviously we are going to take it."

This year along with Montoya, his teammate Dario Franchitti and Patrick Carpentier will be also among those hoping to translate their road course experience into an opportunity to win.

Chip Ganassi Racing will probably have one of the strongest line-ups for the race, as besides Franchitti they will run veteran Scott Pruett in the No. 41 car that is usually driven by Reed Sorenson.