Marco Andretti hopes he can convert his pole position into a good result in Saturday night's IndyCar season finale at Fontana to end an otherwise frustrating year on a strong note.
Andretti, whose only previous career pole came at Milwaukee in 2008, has struggled to get on terms with the new DW12 chassis across the various circuit configurations that the series races on.
He admitted that the team's focus this weekend is on trying to help Ryan Hunter-Reay to win the championship, but said that he still intends to push for the victory.
"We're definitely showing up here to win," he said. "I know my team-mate's in the championship. We're going to help him if we're around him on the track by not interfering, but this is going to race like a high-speed short oval.
"There's not much I can do drafting-wise to actually help him. I'm not going to hurt him or Will [Power]. I'm going to be out to try to win the race, end on a good note to carry some momentum into the off-season."
Andretti said that he had got good pace out of the new car on road courses during 2012, but admitted that he still has some speed to find on street circuits.
"On road courses, I'm fine," he said. "It's the street courses that have been killing me. It's inspired me to work harder off track, really try to find what I need at those places in the setup. We'll be working hard on that in the off-season.
"But it's so close. I mean, if you're on the out by tw-tenths of a second you're 16th, where I've been hanging out lately. It's frustrating. We need to look at that. If we do, we can be the one contending for the championship next year, no question."