{"id":7258,"date":"2024-07-06T15:01:40","date_gmt":"2024-07-06T19:01:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/?p=7258"},"modified":"2024-07-07T15:03:31","modified_gmt":"2024-07-07T19:03:31","slug":"top-three-qualifying-effort-for-abel-motorsports-at-mid-ohio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/2024\/07\/06\/top-three-qualifying-effort-for-abel-motorsports-at-mid-ohio\/","title":{"rendered":"Top three qualifying effort for ABEL Motorsports at Mid-Ohio"},"content":{"rendered":"

LEXINGTON, Ohio. (July 6, 2024)\u00a0\u2013 The ABEL Motorsports trio managed varying conditions, a constantly changing track and a rapidly updating information database after a recent repave reset the game for the INDY NXT by Firestone field this weekend at the Mid-Ohio Sport Car Course.<\/p>\n

At the end of qualifying, Jacob Abel \u2013 second in the series point standings \u2013 was set to start third, with YuvenSundaramoorthy 15th and Jordan Missig 16th in Sunday\u2019s INDY NXT by Firestone Grand Prix of Mid-Ohio.<\/p>\n

All three drivers have a great deal of experience at Mid-Ohio, with Abel (No. 51 ABEL Construction), Sundaramoorthy (No. 22 S Team Motorsports) and Missig (No. 21 ABEL Motorsports) tallying 61 races between them. But that experience all but went out the window this weekend, as the track\u2019s off-season repaving reset teams\u2019 information databases. That gave the ABEL team two practice sessions to figure out setup and get ready for qualifying.<\/p>\n

As is typical for a Midwest summer weekend, the pair of practice sessions saw completely different weather conditions. Friday afternoon was warm, cloudy and threatening rain as all three drivers worked on setup, posting top times early but fighting for rear grip late over Mid-Ohio\u2019s 2.258-mile, 13-turn natural terrain road course.<\/p>\n

Saturday morning\u2019s session was sunny and cool, as Abel once again shot to the top of the speed charts, with Sundaramoorthy close behind and Missig just two-tenths back. All three drivers pitted for new tires with 13 minutes remaining in the 40-minute session, but a late red flag limited them to one flyer lap at the end of the session. At the checkered flag, combined session times put Abel P3, Missig P15 and Sundaramoorthy P16.<\/p>\n

Missig took the green flag in the first of two 15-minute qualifying sessions, with Abel and Sundaramoorthy both in group two. Points leader Louis Foster set the quick time in group one, but Abel aimed for that speed and better, posting the early quick time. Quicker each lap, Abel\u2019s predictive times were quickest on three separate laps but he could not put that perfect lap together, as 11 of the 19 drivers beat the existing track record. Missig was happy with the setup but found himself missing that last bit of pace, while\u00a0Sundaramoorthy continued to look for grip.<\/p>\n

When the final grid was set, Abel was set to start third in Sunday\u2019s 35-lap race, with Sundaramoorthy 15th and Missig 16th \u2013 with the entire field separated by just over one second.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe made a lot of changes to the car in the two practice sessions, and we\u2019ve made a lot of progress,\u201d said Abel. \u201cThe track changed a lot through those sessions, and then again in qualifying, it kind of came to us. We missed pole, just barely, but it’s super close, super competitive in this series. I know we could have gotten pole, I just had to work pretty hard to do it and unfortunately, I just didn’t put everything together there in the end. But we\u2019ll be in a good spot at the start, on the inside, and I’m looking forward to that. It\u2019s always a quick start here, so it’s going to be interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe car was great,\u201d said Sundaramoorthy. \u201cThe team obviously put together a great car, with Jacob P3, but I just didn’t have it. We need to go back and look at the data and try to put it all together. We know it\u2019s going to be difficult, since this track is known to be rough on passing, but we\u2019ll do the best we can. As far as the new pavement goes, I like it \u2013 I think it drives well, I just need to be faster.”<\/p>\n

\u201cI just don’t have the base,\u201d said Missig. \u201cThe biggest thing right now is just trying to figure out where we’re losing the time in the critical corners and trying to work on that. The car I feel like is there and obviously we’re pretty close on times, and you see where Jacob is, so it\u2019s just a matter of trusting the car, and putting the power down and everything and that’s one of the biggest issues. And yes, we\u2019re re-learning the track after the repave, but at the end of the day, everyone’s on the exact same track, on the exact same tire, so we\u2019ll go back and look at that now.\u201d<\/p>\n

ABEL Motorsports thanks partners ABEL Construction Company, Advance Ready Mix,\u00a0Boyd Cat\u00ae<\/sup>, S Team Motorsports, Quest Global and OMP for their continued support.<\/p>\n

The INDY NXT by Firestone\u00a0<\/a>Grand Prix at Mid-Ohio takes the green flag Sunday, July 7 at 11:15 a.m. ET.\u00a0The race will be streamed live in the U.S. on Peacock, while international viewers can watch via\u00a0INDYCARLIVE<\/a>, with INDYCAR Radio available at\u00a0indycar.com<\/a>\u00a0and on\u00a0Sirius XM<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LEXINGTON, Ohio. (July 6, 2024)\u00a0\u2013 The ABEL Motorsports trio managed varying conditions, a constantly changing track and a rapidly updating information database after a recent repave [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":7259,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,73],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-abel-motorsports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7258"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7258\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7260,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7258\/revisions\/7260"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}