Kanaan positive for Motegi

"Japan is such a wonderful country and I've very much enjoyed racing at Motegi the last two years," said Kanaan. This will be the Brazilian's third visit to the Honda-owned circuit, where he finished sixth in only his second CART race.

"It's so different from the place I'm from Brazil, but I've always felt very much at home there - very much at ease," he said.

Kanaan believes this is why he has been so succesful here. "It's shown in my results, I've have a couple of top-six finishes," said Kanaan.

"Motegi is a very nice, state-of-the-art facility that makes for some very good, hard racing," he added.

"I can't wait to make my first start in my new Hollywood-Mercedes. We've done especially well on the ovals so far, so we should be in good shape. We haven't had the greatest luck in the world on race day, so hopefully we'll be able to turn things around this weekend. Every race, this team shows it's potential more and more. One of these times, soon, I think we'll get it all together and perhaps find ourselves on the podium, or even win one!"

Kanaan has one win to his name, but his team Mo Nunn Racing has yet to take victory - Kanaan will need to score well at Motegi if he is to have a chance of remaining in touch with the championship leaders.