Montoya optimistic about race chances

The Colombian struggled with rear-end grip during his qualifying run on Friday, which put him 21st on the grid for Sunday's race, but he was happier with his handling after some set-up changes improved rear stability into the faster corners of the 1.99-mile road-course.

"It was pretty good," Montoya said. "We made a little bit of an improvement from yesterday. We still have to work on it a little bit, but I think that generally we were pretty good. It's a long race and I think that we have a pretty consistent racecar, so I think that should help us."

Despite his relatively poor qualifying, Montoya feels he has a better car to contend for victory than last year, when he came from 32nd on the grid to take his maiden Sprint Cup race win at the track.

He says however that he and his Ganassi team still have to figure out how to get to get rid of the oversteer that has prevented them from getting better starting positions lately.

"We improved from last year," he said. "Compared with last year we're definitely running better. I think our car has definitely improved but we struggle big-time with rear sliding. In race-trim you don't notice it that much but when everybody is just like in ultimate grip, we just don't have it."

Montoya arrived at Sonoma straight after arguably the worst race of his season at Michigan, where he struggled massively with the handling of his car. He ended up turning the race into a test to find out why his car was so loose, finishing 38th and nine laps down.

But despite that he claims not to be less frustrated than a few weeks ago when he suddenly had to start working with a new crew chief for the second time during the season. He says the mood inside his team is good even if results have not recently been encouraging.

"Right now I'm good," Montoya says. "I was very frustrated a couple of weeks ago. I see everybody working hard, everybody pushing in the same way.

"Everybody is trying to make things work and you can't expect from the way we've been running to go out there and run great every week from one week to another. It's going to take time and we just got to build on it.

"(Team owner) Chip (Ganassi) is frustrated, we're all frustrated but being frustrated doesn't make you go any faster, does it? Working at it will, so that's what we're doing and let's see what happens.

"It's tough because we all want to run better, specially on a weekend like here when we know we can have a really good result. I just have to be patient. There's a lot more pace in the car for the race, so we'll be okay."