Despite his complete lack of oval racing experience prior to this season, and having to adjust to a very different car to the one in which he planned to make his US open-wheel racing debut, Ernesto Viso is quickly earning the respect of his IndyCar Series rivals.
His first few races - which, apart from the streets of St Petersburg and Long Beach, thrust him straight into the cut-throat world of oval racing - had IRL regulars criticising his balls-out driving style, but the diminutive Venezuelan has gradually won the majority of them around as he took under-funded minnow HVM Racing to four top ten finishes and twelfth in the overall standings.
"He's a fantastic driver," Indianapolis 500 winner and current points leader Scott Dixon admitted in a recent
USA Today feature, "In a decent car, he would be a threat to everybody."
Danica Patrick, Tomas Scheckter and Dixon's Ganassi team-mate Dan Wheldon have all be quoted as thinking of Viso as an entirely different kind of threat, although the Briton now insists that he has refined his definition of 'crazy'.
"The craziest [rookie] by far is Viso - dude, he looks nuts!" Wheldon opined, "His car was sideways, but he still was keeping his foot [on the accelerator]. It was supremely impressive. He's building a reputation for having [a lot of guts], and that's good. We need those personalities to keep growing the series."
Despite earning
YouTube notoriety for his aerobatic display at last year's Magny-Cours GP2 race, Viso was clearly nervous ahead of his first oval outing, at Homestead-Miami Speedway, at the start of the year, but is now revelling in the 'fearless' tag he appears to have earned.
"Danica's never happy, so I don't care," he said of the vitriolic remarks cast in his direction by the IRL's media darling after the Kansas race, "Scheckter was just a racing incident - I'm friends with him and all the other drivers. It's great that the other drivers think that [I'm fearless] - this is a job where fear is not good."
The Venezuelan was on typical form at last weekend's Richmond race, overcoming a disappointing qualifying performance to advance quickly towards the top ten and run as high as second overall when an alternative fuel strategy allowed him to remain on track when the leaders stopped for fuel and tyres.
That gameplan would later come back to haunt him, leaving him a couple of laps down at the finish, but Viso - knows as EJ in IndyCar circles - had again underlined that he belongs in the IndyCar Series.
