INDIANAPOLIS – As the excuses diminish, the pressure intensifies.

Danica Patrick arrived as a phenomenon at the Indianapolis 500 two years ago, and interest rose considerably after she threatened to win the pole and the race. The raven-haired, 5-foot-2, 100-pound driver was up to the challenge that attention provided.

But 2006 was a letdown, an exercise in frustration for a driver who spent much of the season as a lame duck on a faltering team. Fame fades rapidly at 220 mph and the questions come quickly in the what-have-you-done-for-me-lately business that is big-time auto racing.

Can she win? Will she? When? What’s it going to take? What’ll happen when she does? But what if she doesn’t?

The crowds of fans and of television cameras still gather wherever Patrick pops up. Popularity isn’t the reason Patrick competes, but the spotlight brings the money that fuels the cars, and she knows that the best way to continue it is to live up to her potential and expectations.

“As the years go on, you get more impatient,” said Patrick, who’ll make her third 500 start from the middle of the third row Sunday. “You just want to go out there and run up front, and as a result you’re going to win races.

“It’s not a matter of ‘can.’ I don’t believe that at all, and nobody else in my camp believes that. . . . It’s just a matter of time.”

Patrick moved to accelerate that timetable last summer, when she decided to leave mentor Bobby Rahal for Andretti Green Racing. Although she matched her career best with two fourth-place finishes last season, Rahal Letterman Racing struggled with poor chemistry, turmoil related to the death of driver Paul Dana and a change in equipment.

“Unfortunately the first year I had a fast car but not as much experience, and then the next year I had more experience and I was prepared as a driver more but the car was bad,” Patrick said.

One of the Indy Racing League’s super-teams, AGR provides the best opportunity she has had to prove she can win at this level. Since its arrival in the IRL in 2003, Andretti Green drivers have won 24 races, including the 2005 Indy 500 with Dan Wheldon, and two titles, 2004 with Tony Kanaan and ’05 with Wheldon.

“The biggest thing that people saw with Danica when she was at Rahal was she was out-performing her teammates, so it’s very hard to question somebody when she’s doing that,” said Wheldon, who moved to Chip Ganassi Racing last year.

“Now she’s in what’s considered a top team. Her car can win races weekend in and weekend out. The media are expecting her to do that, and as time goes on, you guys are putting more pressure on her to do that.

“Danica leading the Indy 500 and running up front, that kind of attention has faded. It’s now, ‘OK, now you’re in a top team, you need to win a race.’ She’s going to have to do it pretty soon to shut you guys up.”

With Sarah Fisher and newcomer Milka Duno also in the field, the novelty of women in the 500 has diminished somewhat, and Patrick can share that spotlight. But expectations for her are still the highest because of her 2005 Indy performance and because of the car she is in.

Internally, the team expects no more from Patrick than that she provide feedback on her car’s handling to give all of the drivers their best chance to win, according to Kanaan. If she can win, she will.

“She gets a lot more (external) pressure than we do, so that might be something she needs to work on her own if it’s actually something that’s giving her a hard time or making her not perform the way she needs,” Kanaan said. “I don’t sense that right now.”

Tension existed during Patrick’s rookie season when many of the male drivers and some teams – including Andretti Green – bristled at the attention she received compared to the success she had.

Patrick still has more fans, does more interviews and signs more autographs than her teammates, but they all claim to get along perfectly well these days. Noted pranksters Kanaan and Dario Franchitti have promised to shear Patrick’s long, black hair in victory lane when she wins.

“She keeps telling me she’s got this flat spot on the back of her head,” Franchitti said. “You’ll all see it at some point.”

And yes, he means this year.