It's Tuesday, the first day of the entire month, and I don't want to read too much into it, but I think absolutely that I can make a run for the pole. I think here's going to be a lot of us thinking about that, but we came out this morning and, for a while, we were one of the quickest cars on track. We came out in the afternoon, just waited it out and let the track grip come in, trying to be smart. Then, when we went out, the balance was all off.
"The car was very difficult to drive, so we went and stole a few ideas from [team-mate Marco Andretti] and went back out at the very end and found a car that was much closer to what it needed to be. It wasn't perfect and still had some tendencies that it did earlier, but it was closer. At this place, you can stumble into things, but you can find things that unlock speed. I have no doubt that a lot of us will do that over the next few days - and a pole run is not out of the question at all.
"However, with more cars and a deeper field, we're going to see a lot of cars that think they can go for the pole. You're going to see some people risking it and going out and trying for pole or another run, especially if it rains and there's a lot more tyres that we can use. Then, for sure, you're going to see a lot more people going again. It's going to be the same as last year, where you had everyone in line waiting to go at the end.”
The bigger field is a result of unification and, despite the tougher task it presents her with, Patrick remains in favour of America's two top series coming together.
"The difficulty is going to be more - there are more cars, and some great drivers who've come over from Champ Car," she accepted, "I'm excited there's unification for the growth of open-wheel racing in America. That's what I've hoped for and what I'm excited for.
![Danica Patrick - Andretti Green Racing [pic credit: IRL/Snoddy]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/436633.jpg)
