Montoya hopes experience will help

The Colombian is being tipped by his Nextel Cup rivals as one of the favourites for victory at the first road course event of the season, after he won a Busch Series race at Mexico City earlier this year.

Montoya, while being cautiously optimistic that his background on road courses will give him an advantage, expects things to be much tougher than in Mexico City, given the superior experience most of his rivals have in racing the heavier stock car around the 1.99-mile Infineon Raceway.

"My background in racing has always been road courses, so a lot of people are expecting great things," Montoya said.

"But you have to remember that there are a bunch of really good guys here as well, like Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart, who have road course experience as well, and they have been racing for so many years here.

"I probably have more experience on road courses than anybody, and that should play into our hands.

"The main focus is to get a good result. If we can get a good result, I'll be really happy. I did a three-day driving school here before I started racing cars, actually. Skip Barber was here in September of 1992, I believe."

Montoya tested with his Ganassi team at Virginia International Raceway with their Car of Tomorrow, but was concerned that the larger teams would still have the edge at Sears Point despite his road course experience.

"It's the first time for the COT on a road course," Montoya added.

"We've done testing, but we haven't done as much as Hendrick. I had one day of testing because we had one car and Hendrick had five cars. How do you compete against that? Hopefully my knowledge of road courses should come into play.

"The car felt pretty decent when we tested it. The question is, sometimes it feels good, but it doesn't mean it's fast enough. It doesn't matter how good or bad it feels, it's how fast the car really runs.

"For example, Hendrick hired Max Papis to do a lot of testing because they want to dominate here like they've done here every year. If they found something that nobody else is running, it's going to be very hard to beat them."

The former Formula One star also expects the racing to be particularly close and to feature some contact, given the increased difficulty in overtaking compared to the ovals.

"On an oval, you can fight for a position for five laps, side by side," said Montoya. "With a road course it comes down to a single corner. You commit yourself to it and you do it, and that's it.

"If the other guy doesn't give you enough room, and you're already committed, you can't slow down enough to avoid the guy, so you touch.

"If the guy sees you again, is he going to counter attack because you tried to push him off? And that happens."