A warm welcome for Speed at IndyScott Speed said at Indianapolis yesterday that he cannot wait to slip into the cockpit of his Scuderia Toro Rosso car and get out on track for this weekend's United States Grand Prix.
Speed will become the first American driver since
Eddie Cheever in 1989 to compete in his home race on Sunday and has been enjoying the build-up at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
"For me it has been fantastic," said Speed. "When you first get to F1, you think do I belong here? Am I good enough to stay?"
"I have a lot of confidence about that, the team is supporting me and it is great to be back home."
"It has been fantastic and now when I go back and everyone asked how it is going, I say really great. This is the first time I have experienced F1 in Indy (as a race driver) and it has been a very warm greeting."
Last year saw Speed perform the Friday test driver role for Red Bull Racing - who have backed him since 2003 - at Indianapolis and Montreal in Canada, where he impressed the team.
That, along with a string of front-running performances in the GP2 series, was enough to seal him a move to the Red Bull-owned Toro Rosso team for this season.
As he gears up for his home event though, Speed's expectations are surprisingly low.
Last weekend's Canadian race saw Speed and Italian team-mate Tonio Liuzzi struggle with their Cosworth V10 engines against the V8s of the rest of the field, and Indianapolis shares many similarities with the Montreal circuit.
Speed added: "Certainly at a track like Canada and here it is going to hurt us because we don't have the top horsepower, but we were quite competitive in Canada."
Source AFP
