Fernandez looking to finish the oval job.

After winning the pole on CART's last visit to a one-mile oval and backing it up with a fine second place finish, Adrian Fernandez is looking to finish the job and score a maiden owner/driver win this weekend at Chicago.

After recording his best CART FedEx Series result on a one-mile oval earlier this month at Milwaukee, Adrian Fernandez is hoping that Sunday's CART Grand Prix of Chicago gives his team the vital boost they need after two disappointing road course outings.

Last year at the one-mile oval in Cicero Fernandez Racing's Lola-Honda package was strong once again as the Mexican driver qualified third but n their debut season Fernandez eventually dropped to tenth at the finish. One a full season now under their belt the 2000 FedEx Series runner-up is confident that his team know how to finish the job and pave the way to victory lane.

"I am looking forward to Chicago," said Fernandez who finished fifth two years ago at the Chip Ganassi run circuit. "We had a strong run in Milwaukee, and we hope our set-up will work as well in Chicago.

"Our last two races haven't been very good [failing to finish at Laguna Seca and Portland due to on-track incidents] but, even though the results don't show it, we feel we have improved as a team in a lot of other areas. We hope to continue our good performance from Milwaukee in Chicago, and to try to finish the job this weekend. It's a good track and a lot of fans come to see us. We're hoping for a good race."

Two retirements from the last two races have dented Fernandez' championship ambitions and he currently sits 13th in the standings with 28 points, 46 points behind series leader Cristiano da Matta. After his second place run at Milwaukee Fernandez was in a tie for sixth place with Michael Andretti and just 14 points out of first place.

Fernandez Racing's oval potency was also evident in the sister machine of Shinji Nakano at Milwaukee as the Japanese driver qualified a superb sixth before fading in the races. Sitting only 19th in the drivers standings with four points to his name thus far in 2002, Nakano knows that a good finish is essential.

"I like the Chicago track," he noted despite finishing well out of the points last year. "We found a good set-up for the short oval tracks at Milwaukee, and hopefully we can use this set-up in Chicago as well.

"At an oval track, the most important thing is to have a good set-up. Hopefully what we found at Milwaukee will work at Chicago as well. I had a good car during the race last year, but a yellow flag caught us out. Hopefully we will have better luck this year."