Hornish targets road course win

All of Hornish's 18 IndyCar wins have so far come on ovals, with seventh at Watkins Glen in 2005 his best road/street course finish to date.

Although Hornish raced on a variety of circuits in Formula Ford 2000 and Toyota Atlantic, he moved straight into the IRL in 2000 in its all-oval era, and was therefore at a disadvantage to his ex-Champ Car rivals when road courses were added to the schedule two years ago.

But this weekend he hopes to prove that he is now equally adept at all the types of circuit on the IndyCar calendar.

"One of my goals heading into this season is to win on a road course, and of all of the road/street courses that we run on in the IndyCar Series, St. Petersburg is the one that seems to suit my driving style the best," said Hornish Jr.

"We should have had a top-five finish here in 2005 and had we not had brake problems at the end of the race here last year, we feel we would have finished in the top three.

"The consensus is that this circuit is the one road/street course where we'll have the best opportunity to win or be in the top three.

"The main thing for us is to concentrate on improving where we finished last year, and I think that the road-course experience I've gained in spring testing and at the Daytona 24 will allow us to do just that and hopefully bring home a solid result."