Conquest keen to keep Halliday

New Zealander Halliday, who drove for Conquest in Indy Lights in 2001, set top ten times on both days at Laguna, and convinced team boss Eric Bachelart that he could be competitive in Champ Car.

"Matt really showed us that he deserves to be here," Bachelart said.

"He did a great job, his feedback was excellent and he adapted quickly to the car without any problems.

"It was good to work with him once again and I hope that we can work things out in order to be able to continue working together this season. He would be a wonderful addition to the team."

Halliday felt that he could have done better had mechanical problems not disrupted his test.

"I think it was a good test but a little frustrating because we lost a lot of track time," he said.

"We had problems with our gearbox yesterday, which is just one of those things. It put us behind a little bit with trying to get a good direction on the car.

"I had to adapt to the car quickly and I still managed to put in a good time even though it wasn't a perfect lap, and even if we missed out on a little bit of track time in the end we could drag a time out of the car."

Conquest has slimmed down to a one-car team this season after former co-owner Mike Lanigan left to form a partnership with champions Newman/Haas. Bachelart briefly considered closing his Champ Car team before finding enough finance to continue in late January.