With John's history, I don't think he will have any problem with the new car. His 1st time in an IRL car at Indy, he quickly put it 2 mph faster than The rookie was was in Mad Dog Marty's car earlier. John had a reputation that he could race anything on 4 wheels at one time.

I believe the problem stems from other things such as there not being enough over-the-wall guys to go around. The cobbled-together crew just isn't as good as the regular crews. Not competitive.

That being said, Danica was up front by luck late in the 500 because she screwed up and spun taking another driver out of the race. If you can get the right luck, anything can happen.