Jonathan Noble: Off Line

Amid all the excitement and drama of that emotion-filled afternoon in Canada, it was too easy to forget that there were other noteworthy men in that race other than Robert Kubica and Lewis Hamilton.

The dramatic crash, and Hamilton's maiden win, certainly overshadowed a success story elsewhere - Alex Wurz taking a well-earned podium finish. Wurz was still on a high from that third place as he arrived in Indianapolis, and it was clear that the result meant a lot to a driver and team that have had their fair share of troubles over recent years.

But there was little time to celebrate and reflect on his great afternoon, because the one-week break between races meant that people could hardly draw breath before the work began again at Indy. And getting back to work for Wurz meant more efforts to overcome his self-confessed weakness in taking the car to the limit in qualifying trim.

"With the race pace I am very happy, and with the racecraft I am super-happy with the way I fight and protect," said Wurz about his performances this season.

"I have to just get my head around the qualifying and how I can extract the best out of the tyres. It is not that I am too nervous or anything. I am quite confident going into the session. "But the change of tyres on low fuel when they are new? I haven't really fine- tuned my driving for this, but it is something I am working on.

"I have no problem committing to that: the team helps me, which is very nice, and it is together. I know with the older tyres from last year I could really nail it on the lap totally. That is what I want to work on. But I am honest here and I am self-critical on this. I think it takes a bit of time."

Wurz appears to be going through the same growing pains in extracting single-lap pace from the Bridgestone tyres as some other drivers - Kimi Raikkonen, Fernando Alonso and Christijan Albers. Talk to team boss Frank Williams about Wurz's strengths and he is swift to answer.

"He has blended in handsomely well," explained Williams, who is renowned for being a hard taskmaster for his drivers. "Nothing for him is too much trouble, like more testing, or can you do an extra driver day? Whatever we ask him, he always does it. He is a very popular gentleman with it and he understands his cars quite well."

But singing praises about a racing driver's off-track traits is hardly a ringing endorsement of speed. We all know what people mean when they say someone has a 'great personality'.

When pushed on the matter, Williams admits the Wurz qualifying-speed issue has been noted, but makes it clear the team are ready to help him try and sort it out: "It is a concern for us of course, and for him. But we will give him all the elbow room he needs at the moment. All he has got to do is ask. We will do anything to make it easier for him. If he thinks of something we can do, we will do it."

With Wurz again lagging behind team-mate Nico Rosberg in qualifying at Indianapolis, the need to find an improvement in single-lap speed is obvious. But the ball is very much in the Austrian's court now.

He had done the hard bit in getting back into a race seat after years in the testing wilderness. He showed in Canada that he still has those razor-sharp racing instincts and experience to bring home the results when needed.

Now, to steal one of his favourite phrases, he just has to prove whether he really can 'hang loose' and deliver what is expected on Saturday afternoons. There is more to being a racing driver than just racing.