Rahal battling “brutal” Indy 500 month

Credit: Dominic Loyer

After two years contesting to make the field through Last Chance Qualifying, there was relief for Graham Rahal in qualifying for the 109th Running of the Indianapolis 500.

It may have been by a mere 0.004 mph ahead of Marco Andretti, but the Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing (RLL) veteran broke the two-year streak of appearing on Bump Day, which saw him fail to make the 33-driver field at the hands of teammate Jack Harvey in 2023.

But while Rahal did not have the stress of a Last Row Shootout for a third successive year, he has still been battling issues with his No.15 machine across the fortnight. The positivity after April’s Open Test has dissipated.

“My car has been kind of numb all month,” Rahal said on Thursday’s media day. “I’ve tried so much this month on my car. I’ve been all over. I’ve never, ever, ever put this much into it. That’s what’s been frustrating about all of it. 

“Normally people think the RLL cars come, they’re not fast. It’s got plenty of speed - that’s not the issue. We need to keep working on it.”

Despite the speed in the car, Rahal has been unable to extract that pace amid discomfort in the driving of his machine - both in qualifying and race trim.

“I’ve been struggling all month with handling and balance,” he said. “I don’t think there’s one practice I’ve come back happy yet, including Monday. It’s been a brutal month on my side of things. 

“Our cars have had really good speed. For the rest of the group, I think they’re in a pretty good spot. I feel like from a team perspective we’re leaps and bounds closer than we were in years past. There’s a lot of reasons to be positive about that.”

Credit: Dominic Loyer

It was encouraging for RLL that their other two full-time drivers, Devlin DeFrancesco and rookie Louis Foster, qualified 18th and 22nd. In the two years prior, Christian Lundgaard had the best qualifying result of any of the team’s full-time entrants in 28th last year after 2023 saw all three full-season drivers in Last Chance Qualifying.

Still, two-time Indy 500 winner Takuma Sato outshone his teammates in the extra, Indy-only No.75 entry last weekend, qualifying second for this Sunday’s race. The Japanese veteran also made the Fast 12 last year as the remainder of his teammates fought at the rear.

Rahal admitted he has certainly been struggling more than his teammates again but suggested Sato also has work to do on his race car.

“His race car is not very good either right now,” Rahal said on Thursday. “Not going to sugarcoat. His car is fast but we’ve got to make race cars good. I know Monday being around him, he has the same concerns I have. Mine are maybe a little more severe.”

Rahal has been working closely with Sato and a number of the team’s engineers in a bid to find a solution.

“[We have been] meeting for a long time about setups, looking back at previous setups that Taku and I have had here, which we study anyway,” Rahal said. “But looking for anything that may stand out that will help both of us. 

“He’s really in the same boat as me. We’ve got to be a lot better. Clearly it’s going to be easier to start on the front row than on the 10th. But 500 miles is a long time. We’ve got to get our cars right to make sure we can stay there. If we do that, we’ll be just fine. 

“Last year, we have experience, sadly, starting towards the back. But some of my best races here ever were starting there and some of my worst races were starting up front - Row 2, Row 4… those two didn’t end well.”

Credit: Dominic Loyer

Rahal can draw encouragement from the fact he raced from 33rd to 15th in last year’s race. But he headed into the final ‘Carb Day’ practice session on Friday unsure if a solution had been found.

“I can tell you this, I’ve dedicated myself and my team and more time, energy and effort to this Month of May than anything I’ve ever done,” said Rahal, starting his 18th Indy 500. “Every night, I’ve gone back to the bus and been absolutely mentally exhausted from trying to look into this. 

“I was there 10:30 [on Wednesday] night sitting at the kitchen table looking over data, looking at setup sheets from the last five years, looking at everything and anything I can to give Yves [Touron, engineer] some ideas. There’s a lot of things to go through.”

The Carb Day session started off with Rahal feeling a little more positive with his car. But before the 30-minute mark had been passed, there was a nightmare twist as Rahal pulled into the slow lane with smoke trailing from the rear of his Honda-powered car.

If that was not cruel enough for the RLL team, front-row starter Sato also slowed with an apparent issue in the final 15 minutes of the session. 

It was befitting of the brutal month Rahal describes and means yet more uncertainty for the RLL team. The next time those cars will be on track is for the race.