The 2022 Indy Lights season resumes at Barber Motorsports Park where Matt Brabham will be hoping to capitalise on his recent race win and Hunter McElrea on his pole position.
The IndyCar support series arrives in Birmingham, Alabama for Round 2 of the season from April 29-May 1.
Third-generation racer Brabham enters the event as Indy Lights leader following his win last time out at St Petersburg, and having since driven Stadium Super Trucks at Long Beach and completed an Indy Lights test on the road course variation of Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
The 28-year old is hoping the momentum can carry into this weekend’s round, despite a number of unknowns.
“I’m excited to get racing again and to get to Barber; there’s a few elements that will make the racing interesting with tyre degradation and it being a hard track to pass,” said the Andretti Autosport driver.
“I know I can race well, but qualifying will absolutely be the key.
“We’ve been doing a lot of prep work and working on our set up because it’s one of the team’s weaker tracks so we’ve put in a lot of hard yards over some tests to come out the box stronger at Barber.
“I think it’s going to work and I think we’ll be good, but it’s a little bit of an unknown.
“If we can have a really strong showing at Barber as a team that will be pretty impressive on our end because we have generally struggled there.
“I’m confident in the changes we’ve made.”
His Kiwi team-mate McElrea scored pole position most recently at St Petersburg and demonstrated his outright speed.
Sunday’s Indy Lights race takes place over 35 laps beginning at 10:55 local time (01:55 Monday AEST).