INDIANAPOLIS — With 36 cars entered in the 103rdIndianapolis 500, Ben Hanley and DragonSpeed Racing were given little chance of making the 33-car field.
A lot of people were wrong.
Not only did Hanley make it, the DragonSpeed Chevrolet made the field easily during Saturday’s qualifying.
It’s rather remarkable that this FIA World Endurance Championship and European Le Mans Series team owned by Elton Julian and based in Jupiter, Fla., could enter the Indy 500 with little experience and easily get in the show.
Meanwhile, the famed McLaren team and two drivers from Carlin, which runs full time in the NTT IndyCar Series failed to qualify.
“It’s a massive relief,” Julian said. “It’s a big relief I think for both of us. I think for everybody. We expected to come and fight for the last row realistically, so there was always potential. We had a chance that maybe we could crack that and exceed our no-tow speeds during the week and thinking, ‘Well, maybe just maybe.’
“Little things make big differences, but sometimes little things make no difference. Sometimes you don’t gain any speed, you don’t gain any performance, and it’s easy to get frustrated. We had a little bit of that one day, but we stayed cool, and more important, Ben stayed cool, and we kept pretty much to the program, and here we are.”It took Hanley three attempts to get in the Indianapolis 500 starting lineup. He had an issue in his first attempt but did not panic.
The 34-year-old driver from England qualified with a four-lap average of 227.482 mph and will start 27thin Sunday’s 103rdIndianapolis 500.
“We got stuck in sixth gear on our first qualifying run, so that wasn’t helpful, especially the last two laps where I needed to downshift and we were stuck in sixth,” Hanley recalled. “We were just losing momentum every lap.
“But, obviously, we knew we could go a chunk quicker than our first effort, so it was always the plan to go again.
“And then we jumped up to 30th, which wasn’t enough because there was still plenty of time left, so other people were going to run. So again, I knew we were going to have to make another run. We made just a few small adjustments, and it came together really well for our last attempt. It was a big chunk for us.
“Even though it was small adjustments, this place is pretty special and unique, and tiny little changes, very, very small, has a big difference,” Hanley continued. “Those speeds, you don’t need to do much and the car gave me more confidence and was quicker. Take those two things together and we made a significant step forward. It was enough to make it straight through to the 500.”
Hanley and Julian hope to one day become full-time competitors in the NTT IndyCar Series.
When asked if it bothered them to hear most people predict they would be one of the three cars that would go home, Hanley was straightforward with his answer.
“No, because we weren’t planning on going home,” Hanley said. “I think that’s one of the key things that people can follow quite easily this week is we’ve never been at the top of the charts. More often in the bottom four. But it didn’t faze us and we knew our job, and we knew what we needed to do to get the job done, which our primary focus was make the race.
“So, whether that’s going through as we did Saturday, which is a fantastic achievement, we were just as ready to knuckle down Saturday night and try and make some more adjustments and come back Sunday and make it into the field,” he added. “We weren’t expecting to be in the top 10.
“But at the same time, we were working really hard and systematically to make the improvements to get us in the field.”
“It’s unrealistic to think you’re not in that group,” Julian said. “We’re fighting from the ropes. And we don’t plan on letting that mentality go away.”