Montoya backs decision to go ahead with US Grand Prix

The Colombian, who won the last round of the world championship in Italy, believes staging the race will help the healing process and take American minds off the terrorist attacks in which thousands died.

Montoya is returning to the circuit for the first time since winning America's richest motorsport race - the Indy 500 - a year ago.

While his Williams team mate Ralf Schumacher has questioned the wisdom of staging the event, and both world champion Michael Schumacher and his McLaren-Mercedes rival David Coulthard have aired some reservations, Montoya is happy to be back.

"I think it was important for the image of Formula 1 that it went ahead with its commitment to race in the US," said Montoya. "It was a decision made by the organisers but as a driver I didn't see a problem coming here. It was up to them, not up to me really. But we're here and it should go ahead."

Montoya has started from pole three times in the last four races and arrives in Indianapolis off the back of his debut victory in Monza. He is delighted to get the opportunity of making history by becoming the first driver to win at Indianapolis on both the oval and its F1 track layout.

"I'm very pleased," he said. "I think it's going to be a great show, and hopefully we can get a good result out of it. I've never been really worried about coming back. I thought it was very sad what happened, but the way I look at it, you can't really stop life.

"I think coming here to the race and everything, you're actually going to take people's minds off what happened, give them something to cheer about and forget everything that happened for a couple of days," he added.

Practice starts on Friday amidst an enormous security operation with armed federal, state and local police all working in unison. Beer coolers bigger than 14 inches have been banned, and police have warned fans that all bags will be thoroughly searched.