updated 5:18 p.m. ET Aug. 27, 2005

SONOMA, Calif. - Even with three of his drivers in the top four in the standings and four in the top eight, Michael Andretti isn’t quite ready to predict an IRL IndyCar champion from his Andretti Green Racing team. But he’s close.

“We still have four strong races to go and we’re going to have to be strong,” he said. “Dan (Wheldon) is looking pretty good, but the other three are going to be fighting to get closer to Dan.”

Wheldon, with five victories including the Indianapolis 500, holds a substantial lead in the point standings with 505 points to 408 for second place Sam Hornish Jr. of Marlboro Team Penske Racing. Andretti Green teammates Tony Kanaan and Dario Franchitti are third and fourth, with 385 and 371, respectively. Bryan Herta is eighth, with 321.

“The ultimate goal, obviously, would be to have a 1-2-3-4 in the championship. We’ll see how close we can get to that,” Andretti said.

Hornish hopes to be the spoiler.

“Obviously, I wouldn’t want to see that,” he said.

Andretti’s team is the only one in the IRL with four drivers, and all have been to Victory Circle this season in the 13 races leading up to Sunday’s Argent Mortgage Indy Grand Prix at Infineon Raceway, although Wheldon is the only multiple winner.

Kanaan won the championship last season, 618 points to 533 over Wheldon. Franchitti finished sixth and Herta ninth.

Andretti said all four drivers are looking forward to the challenge of Sunday’s race around Infineon’s 12-turn, 2.26-mile course in California’s hilly wine country. All four tested here in April, with Franchitti the fastest at 108.797 mph.

“It’s a neat track, a fun track to drive, but it is difficult to pass,” he said. “It’s track position that’s going to be king. It’s going to come down to qualifying and good pit stops. I think that if you can keep your track position all day, that’s going to be the key.”

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Sunday’s race will mark the first IRL event on a permanent road course. A Sept. 25 stop at Watkins Glen International, the other road course on the schedule, will come between outings at two oval tracks — Chicagoland Speedway Sept. 11 and the season finale at California Speedway Oct. 16.

Andretti, who raced here in 1983, welcomes the addition of the road courses to the IRL.

“I think it’s very important to the series to be able to be versatile — to be able to come to places like this, to go to St. Petersburg, the street circuits. I really think it’s important to the growth of this open wheel series.”

Along with additional road courses, Andretti said he sees a future for road courses, to bring IndyCar racing to metropolitan areas.

One thing he does not expect to see is a move to the tendency by some NASCAR teams to bring in hired guns to run the two road courses on the oval-intensive schedule.

“We want to be able to have drivers out there that can perform on both so the champion earns it by being able to be competitive on all types of circuits,” he said.

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