Wheldon: mistakes cost me title

The 2005 champion led more laps than any other driver this year, and despite finishing the season on the same number of points as Sam Hornish Jr, missed out on the title because the American took more wins this year.

"What's frustrating about this season, and it kills me, is the amount of points we lost," said Wheldon. "I've got to give credit to Roger Penske's organisation and Hornish. They've given away less points than we have."

Wheldon's only victories came in the first and last rounds of the season, but in between he had several potential wins hindered by small errors.

"When I think about my season, I can talk about my incident with Sam at St. Petersburg and the puncture at Indy," he said. "I can talk about driving through my pit at Kentucky, dropping a wheel nut at Texas, putting in 10 laps too little fuel at Richmond, there's so many."

But despite being unable to add to his victory tally through the middle of the season, consistent top five finishes kept the Ganassi driver in the hunt for the championship.

"To think that we were as close as we were makes it more frustrating," he said, "but we didn't deserve to win because we made too many mistakes."

Before the season finale had even finished on Sunday, Wheldon had already turned his attentions to next year.

"Halfway through the race I was thinking about stuff we can improve for 2007," he said. "We're going to need to improve in all areas, and it's going to be about consistency.

"Scott (Dixon) and I need to work together a bit more, and the short ovals were a problem for us this year. The team is strong though, I can see why they've been so dominant in the past."