PCM, Rubicon confident of qualifying

Both drivers crashed in morning practice prior to today's session, and had to sit out qualifying while their teams worked on the damage.

Rubicon driver Papis had the heavier of the two accidents, but team co-owner Jim Freudenberg was confident that the squad would get the car back into competitive shape ready for Bump Day.

"No question about it, we'll be there and ready to go tomorrow," he said. "Weather permitting, obviously. We're saying a little prayer to them upstairs to help us out with a little bit of good weather tomorrow.

"The guys from (Rubicon's technical partners) Sam Schmidt Motorsports and Forsythe Performance Research have done a tremendous job trying to get this car back together.

"We could have got it back together today but that probably wouldn't have been the safest thing for Max or anybody else, so we'll work until it's done tonight and we'll be back out on the track tomorrow. We've been scrambling through the garage to get parts, and Dallara and the League have helped us out."

Dominguez's Pacific Coast team originally hoped to repair his car in time for a few practice laps before the end of qualifying, but were unable to make it back out so will return to action in morning practice instead.

The Mexican admitted that the crash had dented PCM's hopes of qualifying for their first IndyCar Series race after making a late move across from Champ Car.

"This is a huge setback for us," Dominguez said. "Fortunately I wasn't going all that fast at that point, and I lost it early and scrubbed a lot of speed, so it looks like the damage isn't too bad."

But his team boss Tyler Tadevic remained upbeat and felt the situation could have been much worse.

"Some might say we're unlucky, but we got pretty lucky not hurting the car as bad as it could have been," said Tadevic. "We'll be alright. I'm really proud of my guys. We'll be out tomorrow, for sure.

"Mario's unflappable. When it counts the most, that's when Mario seems to really step up and do the job. He's a lot of the reason why my organisation is here today. When it all counts, I feel confident that we'll be able to put our car in the show."