Schumacher & RLL “shockingly good” in Phoenix IndyCar qualifying

Credit: Joe Skibinski

Josef Newgarden has heaped praise on Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing (RLL) and their rookie driver Mick Schumacher after a spectacular qualifying effort at Phoenix Raceway.

Schumacher will start fourth for his first-ever oval race and will share the second row with teammate Graham Rahal, who qualified third for IndyCar’s return to racing on the mile-long oval - a big step forward after years of woe for the RLL team on short ovals. 

“I thought he was shockingly good,” Newgarden said of Schumacher. “This guy is literally a foreigner to oval racing. I thought he did a great job. I would also just say it looked like Rahal in general looked significantly better than they have in the past.

“I haven’t seen Graham qualify like that on an oval in a while. So I think it’s also a team comment; you’ve got something going on there too. But for Mick, what a tremendous job.”

A product of the European ladder, ovals were an alien concept for Schumacher, who spent two years with Haas in F1 before most recently racing in the World Endurance Championship’s Hypercar class with Alpine, when opting to switch to IndyCar for 2026. 

As part of his off-season preparation, he tested at Homestead-Miami Speedway, as well as partaking in the recent full-field test at Phoenix. But to qualify fourth for his debut oval race - on only his second race weekend in IndyCar - was a remarkable turn-up, following on from fellow rookie Dennis Hauger qualifying third on debut in St. Petersburg last weekend.

Credit: Joe Skibinski

Schumacher was the first driver to run in the single-car qualifying session, too, owing to being innocently caught up in a first-lap crash on debut in St. Pete and sitting last in the championship as a result. But his 173.667 mph two-lap average held up extremely well.

“It was really about putting everything on the line, trying to maximise the package that we have. I think we did that,” he said. “I think there’s still a little bit in there and going out there first is not always easy. In this case, we didn’t have a reference beforehand. But maybe that was also not too bad because we had to go and do whatever we knew from previously. 

“Overall, as a team, we did a great effort there. No doubt, [the race] is going to be tough. Excited about going racing and excited about starting a bit further forwards.”

Running around other cars and having to navigate traffic and dirty air on an oval for the first time will, above all, make the 250-lap race an education for Schumacher. Even after the highs of qualifying, he should not be judged at all harshly should Saturday go a little awry.

“The race is a different story but I say this all the time: you’ve got to be open-minded in this series,” Newgarden said. “He could just come in and be a natural. It’s not unheard of. We’ve seen people do that where they just take to these racing conditions. But he passed his first test with flying colors. Now he has a couple of other tests that he needs to pass.”

Credit: Chris Owens

For Rahal, a third-place start marks his best short-oval qualifying result since 2009 at Richmond Raceway, where he started fifth. This is his best qualifying spot on any oval since also starting third at Texas Motor Speedway in 2012.

The only two cars ahead of him were Team Penske’s David Malukas and Josef Newgarden, two drivers regarded as oval supremos for the best short-oval team in the series.

“It’s hard not to get too excited because we pushed so hard to be in this position,” Rahal said. “Obviously it’s just qualifying; it’s not the race. It’s going to be really important we’re on our game, that we’ve got good race cars. But the performance in qualifying, just exceptional. 

“Mick did a wonderful job; I’m super proud and super happy for him. Louis [Foster, starting 16th], we’ll get him up there. To start third is a bit of a shock for me but we’ll take it.”

To have two cars starting inside the top four on Saturday is a significant achievement for the wider RLL team after several off-seasons of emphasis being placed on improving an ailing short-oval package, largely to no avail. It was a source of increasing confusion.

But under the guise of team president Jay Frye and with a number of significant off-season additions of senior personnel, namely Gavin Ward and Brian Barnhart, they may just have finally found a silver bullet to eliminate their biggest weakness.