R. C. Enerson says “the stress levels are through the roof right now” as the sole Abel Motorsports driver qualified the one-off entry for the Indy 500.
The American driver qualified in 29th place ahead of all four Rahal Letterman Lanigan entries for his first Indy 500 start.
Enerson said in an interview during Day 1 of qualifying with NBC Sports: “The stress levels are through the roof right now, I haven’t taken my phone off timing and scoring and we thought we had a good buffer.
“Props too Juncos for getting the car together and getting that time in especially with how chaotic that looked.
“We knew our first run was a bit conservative so we have some things to do better than that but with the time remaining, with the cars that are going.
“I think the two cars in Lane 1 the chances of getting out are pretty slim so I think we’re just sitting and waiting and seeing how this falls out, it seems pretty good I think.”
The 26-year-old explained the fine margins of choosing which lane to sit in in qualifying and whether to remove your average lap time to attempt to improve it.
“It would be tough because if you’re in Lane 1 and don’t make it out before 5:50 when that gun goes off your times already pulled so I believes that’s what it is.
“Just in case but I don’t think we have enough time we had too much of a buffer here, I think we’re seeing how the cards play out.”
The Team Principal is delighted with his young team’s efforts at Indianapolis and is amazed to be in the Indy 500 without having to endure the agony of bump day.
Abel said: “I’m now finally starting to wrap my brain around what we’ve been able to do so far. It’s just amazing.
“The support we’re getting from Chevrolet has been outstanding. Our “stretch goal” was to be in the show (Saturday). We figured we might have to come back and run on Sunday but it wasn’t necessary.”
