By alley - Aug 29, 2014, 11:13 AM ET

IndyCar: Aleshin targets return with Schmidt Peterson Motorsports

Seven top-10 finishes from 17 rounds, including a strong second-place finish on the streets of Houston, has the 27-year-old Moscow native perched between IndyCar veterans Justin Wilson and Charlie Kimball in the championship, and with a solid run this Saturday in Fontana, he could move ahead of Kimball and Josef Newgarden to secure 13th in the final standings.

With the 2014 season set to conclude in less than 48 hours, Aleshin tells RACER he and his backers at SMP Racing have already begun to look toward 2015 and beyond as talks have started with Schmidt Peterson Motorsports to continue their relationship.

"Definitely," said the Moscow native. "When we came here with SMP Racing, it was not a decision to only do one year of racing. We are working very hard setting everything up for next year.

"Personally, I want to continue here. This championship is one of the strongest I have competed in, and the level of drivers is really good. Next year we're going to have some new parts on the cars (aero kits) and it is going to be very interesting to develop these things. The team has very good potential."

Aleshin's teammate Simon Pagenaud holds third in the championship, and along with the Frenchman's engineer Ben Bretzman, technical director Nick Snyder, general manager Rob Edwards and the rest of the SPM team, finds himself learning from one of the most effective teams in the IndyCar paddock. Like Aleshin, Pagenaud has yet to sign with SPM for 2015, but the driver of the No. 7 Honda says his interest in returning doesn't hinge upon Pagenaud's decision to stay with SPM or move to Andretti Autosport.

"No, I have had a thousand teammates, Simon has had a thousand teammates, so you can only make your decision on what is best for you," he added. "I would like very much to have Simon with me in the team; I feel we work very well together and this will only get better when I gain more experience, but we do not base what we will do because of who I will have as my teammate."

Aleshin and Pagenaud have formed an effective partnership, but the rookie doesn't see that as essential to his future with SPM.

Asked to assess his progress this year, Aleshin has mixed views on how things have gone across the various types of tracks he's encountered, and how he's adapted to American-style competition.

"There's always a place for improvement; I think I can do a better job sometimes, but at the same time, it has been a good year, we need to finish this race [at Fontana], and we're happy with how this year went," said Aleshin, who has been surprisingly quick on ovals despite having no experience in the discipline prior to the Indy 500.

"I lacked experience here; I've never raced on any of the tracks and many of the rules are different, so I have a lot to learn. At Sonoma I was racing and I see someone was going to overtake me, and I wanted to defend (Aleshin makes a hard steering motion to the right), but I remembered this is not allowed in America so I did not make this [blocking] move. I still have some of these tendencies from European racing I must not use, so I know it will take more than one year to completely adapt to racing here."

After an exploratory year in IndyCar, it's believed Aleshin and SMP Racing will look to arrange a multi-year deal that will allow him to steadily work his way up the rankings. And as part of the SMP Racing academy – something akin to a ladder system for Russian drivers – he says more of his countrymen could follow in his footsteps.

"You can see the really good tendencies with the [SPM] team in the past few years, and I think this year showed the team made another big step to be one of the top teams," he noted. "We're doing very good with Simon; he's a very good driver and I think he has everything to win the championship. I believe we make a good team together.

"And it is not only me that SMP works to develop. In Europe we have sports cars and in America, now we have Indy cars. SMP supports young drivers who do not have the money to continue; I come from a normal family and only because of SMP my racing career continues. I am not the only one [being developed by SMP], so there could be more Russian drivers who also race in America."