With inexperience seemingly not a problem, Battistini now has his sights set firmly on a second successive title to add to his Asian F3 crown from last season, and the chance to perhaps move up to the senior IndyCar Series before 2009.

"I have to admit, when I first started driving at Homestead, it felt really quick," he said, having taken the championship lead by 27 points over Richard Antinucci, "It felt quite dangerous running so close to other cars but, once you get into race mode, it kind of goes out the window. You just put your head down and drive.

"Because you want to go faster, you actually feel slower after a while. It's just come to me naturally, I guess, but it helps when the car's great, like I said. It's fairly tough because we run really high downforce here, and obviously the races are longer than what I was used to last year in Asian F3, but I've managed, I've coped.

"I still have plans to do at least two or three tests in the IndyCar this year, and a couple of races towards the end of the year. The way things are going right now, I think it's all looking really promising for me and, hopefully, I'll be in an IndyCar with Panther next year."