IndyCar star Pato O'Ward has the best Indy 500 starting position of his career leading into Sunday's race ... and he tells TMZ Sports he's ready to duke it out and take full advantage of his opportunity.

He won the pole with Italian team Prema Racing, a dominant European organization that this season expanded to IndyCar. Shwartzman has never before raced on an oval and will start alongside two-time winner Takuma Sato and Pato O’Ward, who lost to Newgarden on the last lap year.

And talk of Indianapolis, and it will almost certainly bring the world's most famous 500 Mile Race to the forefront of the mind and imagination. From its beginnings as a yard of bricks laid just past the turn of the 20th century,