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Danica Patrick's Indy car team is confident this could be her year to win the Indianapolis 500.

Michael Andretti, a retired Indy car series champion and co-owner of her Andretti-Green Team, told Reuters that America's most famous motor race was on one of Patrick's strongest race tracks.

"She proved it in her rookie year," he said.

"She was in a position to win (in 2005 when she finished fourth). If we can give her the track position up front she's not going to be easy to pass."

Winning the Indy 500 would give Patrick the credentials she fervently wants.

While the diminutive driver broke through as the first female winner of an IndyCar series race in Japan last year, she is still best known as the race car driver who poses for swimsuit photoshoots.

The Indy 500 is the most important in the series and takes about three and one-half hours of all-out driving around the venerable 2.5 mile oval called the Brickyard to complete the 500-mile (800 km) event.

"It's such a long race, that so many things happen," Patrick, 27, told Reuters about having to maintain focus.

"You can go from the front to the back, to the front, then to the back. Never, in your mind, get out of the race."

Her biggest obstacle will be overcoming the powerful Team Penske and Chip Ganassi Racing teams who grabbed four of the top-five qualifying spots with three Indy 500 winners driving in their cars.

Last year Ganassi's Scott Dixon, a New Zealander, won the race and went on to the series championship while Patrick's car crashed in the pits and she finished 22nd.

"I feel like the gap has been closed quite a bit this year," said Patrick.

Although she is more confident than ever, Patrick jokingly downplayed her chances. "I'd like to call myself the dark horse, of course," she said before adding: "Anyone who qualified on the first day has a shot."

Patrick will start from 10th position on Sunday's 33-car grid, with Helio Castroneves of Brazil on pole alongside his Penske team mate Ryan Briscoe of Australia.

Ganassi driver Dario Franchitti of Britain, the 2007 winner, starts outside on the front row.

Reuters