Indy Road Course “works for us” as Rahal secures podium finish

Credit: Paul Hurley

The Indy Road Course marked a second podium finish for Graham Rahal this season as he fought to keep pace with David Malukas until the end. The Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing driver secured a third-place finish, keeping Josef Newgarden and current championship leader, Alex Palou behind.

A Podium Improvement

During the 2025 season, Rahal qualified on the front row at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, but only managed to finish in sixth place at the end of the weekend. He returned this year, battling towards the front of the grid, having played to a three-stop strategy.

“[This track] definitely works for us as a team and for me,” Rahal said. 

Having a canceled practice session due to the weather, Rahal still deemed it a great day overall. It was a race where he hoped to finish higher, but was not able to catch Malukas and race winner, Christian Lundgaard.

“I could tell right away I didn't quite have the pace for Christian. He was just very fast. But look, I thought we put a great race together, great strategy, great calls, and great stops. We'll take it. We'll march on in the rest of May.”

On the final few laps, Rahal struggled to get close enough to overtake Malukas, opting to stay between the limits of his car rather than losing position.  

“I just burnt the rears. I was dying at the end and trying to hang on and not make any mistakes. I try to take care of the engine – if you don't have to beat it up, don't beat it up,” Rahal said.

“Really needed [Malukas] to make a mistake, which he didn't do. It was only ten seconds [of push to pass] left, and I tried to use as much as I could, but I realized I'm really not closing the gap like I need to.”

Ironing out the Issues

After a hybrid issue caused Alexander Rossi to come to a complete stop on the main straight and retire the car, it brought up a conversation about what the issue is with the system.

“It's a lot of work. As physical as it is now, everybody is hustling. It's 85 laps of qualifying, pretty much. It's not like it used to be, for sure,” Rahal noted.

For himself and the No.15 team, Rahal was happy to have finished the race without any mechanical problems after having dealt with a clutch failure on Friday. 

“I thought it was very, very strange yesterday. I know there were several of them around, and I'm a little concerned about what's causing that, but we'll soldier on through the rest of May.”

In a moment of thought, Rahal commented on the time it took to return to green flag racing after several cautions, which, to him, had taken away the chances of winning races.

Having that in mind, he hoped history would not repeat itself, knowing the outcome of the race would have been different, speaking on Alex Palou’s mistake in not pitting immediately under caution. 

“The three fastest cars on track were the three that finished in the top three today. In the end, Palou did a great job to come back up to fifth and would probably have been ahead of us, to be very frank. We still battled it out. It wasn't necessarily that we got super lucky, I don't think.”

Credit: Chris Owens

Winner in an old teammate

Lundgaard’s first race win came in 2023 on the Streets of Toronto with Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing. Since the move to Arrow McLaren, he has had nine podium finishes, with this win this weekend being his first with the team.

“His consistency -- you see guys come over that are fast, but it takes them a long time to learn how to race. Those are two very different things. Christian has always been good at both. It's not a surprise whatsoever,” Rahal said.

The Dane sits fourth in the championship standings, only three points behind Malukas. Rahal tied up his praise by commending Lundgaard and the No. 7 team for their strategy, speed, and ability to hold on until the end, showcasing the commitment to win the race.

“They've been able to get tyre degradation under control, and today showed that. As the tyres wore, he got better and better compared to us. That's a challenge nowadays with the mass of these cars and everything else. It's a wonderful job for him.”

Rahal and the rest of the Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing teams turn their attention to the Indianapolis 500, taking this podium finish as a positive sign for the month of May. A tough 2025 qualifying saw Rahal start in 30th with a 17th-place finish in the end, making him the final out of the four team cars to finish the race.