The track performances don't lie: Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing is getting a lot closer to the front, as you saw at Motegi. We're not right there yet, as you saw in Chicago.

When I was trying to make the pass for the lead, you could see we're still lacking that last little bit of speed, but our rate of progress from joining the IndyCar Series in 2008 to here, in September '09, is excellent. We're still not Ganassi, we're still not Penske, but we're edging up, no question.

At Chicago, OK, we only left with fifth place, but I was happy we were in the mix. I was a little unsure of what lap we were on toward the end. When my spotter, Lee, is speaking to me a lot because the racetrack is so busy, I don't have time to look up at the scoring pylon, and I'm sure that's true of everyone apart from the leader. For Motegi, we improvised and put a lap charter on the steering wheel, so every time we went past the beacon, it would add a lap. Pretty simple stuff to do, but useful: If I had known what lap we were on at Chicago, maybe I wouldn't have made my move so early. I'd have waited a little bit longer and might have got third: it wouldn't have won us the race, though.

But I can't be disappointed: the No. 02 McDonalds car has made a hell of a run here at the end of the season. There's still work to do, but we're not far off. We made a lot of gains from Kentucky onward, really figuring out the oval car. We still need to work on our road courses, obviously, but not the car: just our luck! We've qualified well all year, but we can't get a good finish, and it's just been a case of errors. The Mid-Ohio race was my fault – I had too much rear brake-bias, locked the rears, and went shooting off the course. At Infineon…I can't say too much about it. The driveshaft would have broken later in the race, anyway, so that's just bad luck. We only ran 20 laps there once it was sorted, and we ended up (I think) with second-fastest race lap.

We've just got to get luckier. Put Watkins Glen aside, because we really qualified fifth there and got penalized because the car was too light, and no one's going to tell me two pounds would have put us down in 15^th! So our worst qualifying on a road course was seventh at Long Beach; our worst qualifying anywhere was 12^th at Texas because…well, just because we were horrible! So I think we've got to be pretty happy. Ignore Texas and Iowa and we've been close everywhere, and I haven't been at a circuit this year thinking, “We've got no chance this weekend,” and I think everyone on the team is excited by that.

No, Newman/Haas/Lanigan is not getting wins yet at the rate we were in the last few years of Champ Car, but everyone feels the momentum picking up again and I don't think there's anyone on the team that feels down. I think everyone feels a lot of victories to come for this group. I don't want to say I was part of a year when the team didn't get a win – and there is one race left – but truthfully I just say, “Hey, we all tried our hardest, some of us made mistakes, myself included.” We all are keeping our heads down, focused on the last race of the year, and then hopefully all the contract stuff will get sorted and we can continue this through many years to come.

You can see it from the results that Oriol Servia's arrival – or return, I guess – to Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing has made us a better team. We were very much a one-car team until these last few races. The No. 06 car has had its best results in the last four weekends and Oriol is a guy who, with all his experience, is just so valuable. It's a shame he can't find a ride that's stable. He brings so much to a team because of his knowledge and the guy has an engineering degree – he's just smart. So he was good for us – he helped us out and he's fun. There are a lot more smiles on a lot of people's faces, and it's just a whole different deal than before. We had a good clean battle in Motegi. Actually, at one point I did give him the cold shoulder, but at the same time, I was thinking, “I've really got to get maximum points here, because I have to catch Marco and Danica in the championship.” Ultimately, I thought we had more speed anyway.

For the final race, though, Oriol's being replaced by Alex Lloyd, so that will be interesting. I'd like to have been able to attend Alex's first test: I'll be in Orlando, actually, when my new teammate is testing at Homestead, so it should have been feasible, but I have IndyCar Series promotional duty down there, with sponsors and potential sponsors. I am a firm believer – I'm not just saying this – that there are a lot of positives for the series at the moment. Just look at the racing lately – I thought the last race at Motegi produced the best racing we've had at that circuit. So hopefully we can capitalize on that with increased sponsorship.

A lot of people were worried by the racing in Chicago, a lot of others thought it was just a fantastic spectacle. I fall right in the middle! The racing needs to be that way for the fans, but as I said to someone, “That's OK, let's have it that way…but let's not have it getting any more exciting, or someone's going to end up in pain.” I've got to confess, I was more nervous before that race than any other race in my career. After practice the night before, with as much passing as was going on, and three-wide, I just thought, “This is going to get insane.” Once I got out there, there were still times when I thought it was a little much, but it was fun.

The thing is, if you race up front with the guys that are good, it's not a problem; they give you room. Hopefully, we're going to continue racing at the front, so no problem!

We aren't comparing apples with apples though. Everyone was naysaying Richmond this year but, let's be honest, that track was never a great one for racing; and by the same token, last year's Kentucky race was OK anyway. But there's no question these aero changes have improved the racing, and I reckon Chicagoland will be even better. Last year, I spent a good 30 laps or so running three wide, which you never like: It makes you uneasy. I was the cream in the Oreo for a while, and then I was on the high side too, which is always the worst. But the upside of being up top is that if you're gonna crash, you don't have far to go.

Our new power boost button is a help too. Normally we have a 10,300rpm rev limit, and the power boost allows you to go to 10,500, with 20 shots of 12sec each. So let's say I'm running in fifth gear, and in the tow. Well normally I'd be hitting the rev-limiter a little bit, but it also pulls me out of the corners better than sixth gear, obviously. So when I push the button, not only does it give me 5hp through the whole rev range, it allows me to rev to 10,500 and I'm never going to hit the limiter. So it can give you an extra 1.5 to 2mph on the back straight without changing to sixth and letting the revs die away. You have to come off the gas quite a long way to disengage it. We're still not at Champ Car power, and it's not the boost that we had in Champ Car, either, but it's still good and useful.

 In Toronto, the car felt pretty good. We struggled initially and then it got more and more competitive.  And then in the race, I made a dumb move: I expected Ed Carpenter to have seen me, I dove underneath him when he let Danica by, and that took us out of a good weekend, unfortunately. We were going to get a lot of good points, and instead we ended up missing out. I look back and I think how stupid I was, because if we'd got a decent result there and at Watkins Glen, I'd have been in the Top 10.

Toronto was disappointing already, though, because I was tucked up behind Dario, I'd had a good start, it was supposed to be a two-by-two start, and Will Power came across and busted my front wing. No hard feelings, though: Will said it was his fault. It was just bad luck for us, and to be honest, that's how our year has gone. We've had a lot of very good performances, a lot of bad luck and some mistakes on my part: and others that were a mix of all three.

I was pleased with my performance in qualifying, at least. I thought I was going to get pole which, considering how bad we were last time I was there, in 2007, is a major turnaround. It was an example of the team doing a great job to correct difficulties. I think we are showing we have the qualifying pace, there's no doubt about that, and we'd like to think we can get another couple of poles before the year's over. At the end of last year, we sat down together and said, “OK, if we're not in the Firestone Fast Six on at least three occasions, we're going to be disappointed.” And we've been in the Fast Six in every road and street course but one – Long Beach – and there we were seventh. So I'd say we've been pretty good.

I think part of the reason for this improvement is my own performance. I feel much more confident about putting a lap in. When I joined the team two and a half years ago, I told them that I always felt my weak point was qualifying, and if you ever looked at my past career, I always raced well but couldn't get everything out of myself in qualifying. Well this year, I've improved on that massively, and that makes me feel good, because I feel that's not a weak link any more.

Now, don't get me wrong, I realize there's a lot of improving to be done and a lot of learning to be done, but I feel a lot more confident and comfortable. And that also comes from getting a better car, and from being partnered with Justin Wilson last year. He helped me a lot, because although our cars weren't as good as they are this year, he could really carry a car, and that's what I learned from him. So this year, I think there have been times when we've gotten a little bit more out of the car than it really had, but at least we are showing as a team that we can compete. That's the main goal.

Edmonton was a bit more of a struggle, though again we got in the Fast Six in qualifying. But once Paul Tracy was past, we couldn't retaliate right away. There wasn't a whole lot we could do. I was saving more fuel than him – I think on the first stint, we went two laps longer – so we could have got him there, but I think my in-lap wasn't quick enough. Then we ran a second set of reds, which was probably a mistake: when everyone else went red-black-red, we went red-red-black.  Our thinking was that the last stint would be a long one, and we were fearing the reds would fall off, but actually the car's handling was comfortable on reds and not so comfortable on blacks. When Tracy started struggling, I think we'd have had something for him if we'd been on reds, but we struggled to get past Wheldon and Tagliani, so I couldn't catch him anyway.

But you've got to tip your hat to the KV Racing boys: they're doing a hell of a job over there: those cars look very good. Sometimes when you follow a KV car…whoa, it's impressive. Same feeling we all get every time we follow the Penske guys!

Kentucky has been a big confidence-booster for us all. I think we had shown some really strong pace on ovals, but I felt in traffic we weren't quite there. But after this weekend, I feel we're very close now. We could run with those guys up toward the front, and that makes me feel we've got a shot when we go to Chicago to really give everyone a run for their money. The rear feels secure now, and so even if I was directly behind someone, in their dirty air, I felt it was going to understeer, which on an oval is a lot easier to deal with than catching the back of the car!

This weekend, my home race, in Mid-Ohio, I feel we should be very competitive. Unfortunately a lot of teams have tested here and we haven't but I think we should still have a good shot at it. I'm basing that on how we ran in Watkins Glen (where we didn't quite have the speed that the top two or three had, but it felt close) and also taking into account Mid-Ohio last year. We ran well until I made a stupid mistake, but we've made a lot of gains since then. So I think we should be pretty good.

I guess what I'm wanting is a strong qualifying followed by no bad luck on raceday. Just a simple, progressive weekend will see us show what we can do and have the results to back it up. Here's hoping!

Graham

Hello again. I’m writing this on Saturday night and we’ve just qualified the No. 02 McDonald’s car fourth for the world’s biggest race!

The run up to qualifying was not easy, but throughout, I knew that Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing had given me a quick car. We just didn’t get a chance to show it all the time, but the signs were there if you looked hard enough. For example, on the Thursday before Pole Day, no one outside the team seemed to notice this, but my quickest speed, a 222.996mph which eventually put us ninth quickest, was my first flying lap after coming out of the pits! Unfortunately the No. 02 McDonald’s car then broke a gearbox, otherwise we’d have been much higher up. I reckon we’d have done a 224, maybe even a 225, which would have put us in the top three, but we just never really got to do a run. We only did 40 laps all day but kept having problems.

Then on Friday we were 11th, so again we looked okay but nothing threatening the front row; it felt like we needed to do some more trimming out. I couldn’t put my finger on the problem exactly, but the No. 02 car just felt like it had a little too much drag for the straights. I was also running slightly conservatively, because in the back of my mind I knew that my teammate Robert Doornbos had crashed and he was going to be using the back-up car.

But on Saturday the car felt good – and although Doornbos crashed the back-up car as well, we knew we just had to put that out of our minds for four laps. We did and took sixth with our first run. Now, bearing in mind we had no back up car, people were surprised to see us heading out for another go but what they didn’t know was that we had to. The people in tech were being a bit iffy about a part that we’ve been running everywhere, so that was slightly weird. They hadn’t failed us but it was an issue that needed smoothing out.

Then right before that second run, at about 4.50p.m., the gearbox quit. I don’t know if something got too hot, or what the hell happened, but the damn thing broke! The McDonald’s crew did an amazing job to fit a new one in pitlane, and off we went and got fourth. I’m not just happy for me but for the crew. I mean, how many other teams could have changed the ’box not just in the time available, but so that it worked straight away? Awesome effort all 'round.

Now compare how the Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing team performed at this track last year, and you start to appreciate the huge progress that we made over the winter. To make that kind of progress, to make that kind of gain on teams like Penske and Ganassi really shows the strength and depth of this outfit. The car feels really secure under me, and of course I feel more comfortable with a year’s experience under my belt.

The signs were there, though, if you look at our performance in Kansas. I know everyone was saying that Kansas has no bearing on Indy because the tracks are so different, but I never agreed. I always thought Kansas was a good indication of things to come at Indy. I mean, just to point out the obvious, last year Scott Dixon was on pole in Kansas and on pole at Indy. If you’re fast on an oval, you’re fast on an oval – plain and simple. People can say what they want, but truthfully the ovals are all going to be the same. If you’re good on any oval, you’re going to be good at Indy. And we’ve just proven that.

I guess I better recap a bit, because my last RACER column was written just before Long Beach race, and obviously that was a frustrating event for us. I wasn’t happy with just seventh on the grid after getting pole at St. Pete, but then what happened in the race with that bad pit stop and then the penalty is doubly frustrating, because we’d gotten ourselves into the top three. It was only a little mistake, but it had big consequences. I feel we have a good shot at this championship, and in order to do that, we can’t make mistakes.

I reckon we had saved as much fuel as anyone else, so without the problem I’d say a top three finish was definitely in the cards for us. I don’t know if we had the pace of Dario, and the way the cards fell with the full-course yellows, he was also pretty lucky that day. But I think we’d have been close. Without doubt, we can be winners on road and street courses this year; we’re at the stage where just a little fine-tuning to improve our race pace will put us right there, every time.

Kansas had different emotions for me, and in fact they varied over the weekend. In practice, we didn’t get many laps completed which was disappointing so we went into qualifying not really knowing where we were. But when the team told me what my teammate Robert had done on his qualifying run, I was thinking to myself, “Well, if he’s done that, we can go quicker.” That was my mindset. Then the team told me my warm-up lap needed to be faster, so, sure enough, it was hugely fast compared to everybody else’s and then we put four smoking laps on the board: it was great. In a way, that pole meant more to me than St. Pete, because for us to achieve that on an oval was tremendous. The amount of effort it takes for the team to get up to speed on an oval is huge.

In the race, I was struggling with understeer pretty badly, and at first my theory – which seemed pretty logical at the time – was that if I tried the high line, all that would happen would be that I had less room to understeer to. So I didn’t try it… But then when I did, I found the car didn’t understeer at all! So I guess that’s a lesson learned and next time I’ll be more proactive in trying that, for sure. As a result of that, we really picked people off. I had a killer restart going after the final yellow – so good that I thought I could pass three or four cars, but I got chopped on the low line, and ended up losing momentum and a place. But our car’s pace and discovering the high line got us back up to seventh. By then, Marco and Danica were too far ahead to catch before the checker.

Still I still feel pretty good about our performance in Kansas: we were right up front and we had the pace to be in the Top Three all day. We slipped back, but we made some spots up at the end. There are things we definitely need to improve on, but the pace is there. We just need to smooth some of the rough edges, and I remain as confident as ever that we can.

You want to know if I can win Indy, I’m sure. Well, Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing is a remarkable team, I always knew that, but even so, the last few months have been a reminder of its sheer depth of talent and the commitment from the very top bosses. That’s why there’s no rest for the McDonald’s crew now: I’m going to be out there testing race setups on Sunday, to try and get a jump on the others.

Is it a good omen that I’ll be starting fourth, considering that’s the same place that my dad started in 1986 when he won the race? Well, I’m not big on omens – but I’d happily be converted on May 24th.