Tag: Graham Rahal

Hogan and Rahal reunite for World Wide Technologies Raceway

The Hogan family’s successful midwestern trucking business afforded Carl Hogan the opportunity to fund racing teams and join Bobby Rahal in the formation of the Rahal Hogan Racing program which won the CART IndyCar Series championship on debut in …

The Hogan family’s successful midwestern trucking business afforded Carl Hogan the opportunity to fund racing teams and join Bobby Rahal in the formation of the Rahal Hogan Racing program which won the CART IndyCar Series championship on debut in 1992.

Based in St. Louis, Missouri, Hogan Transportation continues to thrive, and with the upcoming World Wide Technologies NTT IndyCar Series race set to take place in late August on the outskirts of Hogan’s home base, the families will be reunited in competition with the return of Hogan branding, this time on the No. 15 Honda piloted by Bobby’s son Graham.

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“The Hogan family has been involved with Indy car racing off and on for over 40 years,” the family said. “Carl Hogan Sr. was a co-owner with Bobby in Rahal Hogan Racing from 1992-1995 and we’re excited to re-energize the partnership between the Rahal and Hogan families after 30 years. It feels natural for us to be the primary sponsor of Graham’s race car. The Hogan family participated in the first Indy car race in St. Louis in 1997 with Dario Franchitti and again in 1999 with Helio Castroneves. It is exciting to once again see the Hogan name on an Indy car at our home track. It will be even more special to have Graham Rahal as the driver.”

The elder Rahal, who co-owns the Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing team with David Letterman and Mike Lanigan, would go onto compete against Hogan from 1996-1999 under the Team Rahal banner. Hogan shuttered the Hogan Racing team in 2000 and passed in 2001.

“I’m very pleased to have Hogan Transportation as the primary sponsor on Graham’s car for their home race,” Rahal added. “Personally, I’ve had a relationship with the Hogan family since 1991 and, of course, they have been involved with the team over the years.

“Thinking about them being on Graham’s race car as the primary sponsor brings back so many fond memories and I can’t help but think about how much Carl Sr. would enjoy this. I have always enjoyed spending time with (Hogan’s sons) Brian, David and Carl Jr. They are good guys, a great family and great company and we are all looking forward to watching Graham in the Hogan car.”

After its darkest days, RLL has rediscovered its fighting spirit

​Bobby Rahal didn’t want to hear it. Nearly two months of intensive work to find his IndyCar teams’ competitive shortcomings were starting to bear fruit, and behind the scenes, the 70-year-old was lighting a fire under Rahal Letterman Lanigan …

​Bobby Rahal didn’t want to hear it.

Nearly two months of intensive work to find his IndyCar teams’ competitive shortcomings were starting to bear fruit, and behind the scenes, the 70-year-old was lighting a fire under Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing’s managers and chiefs and engineers and mechanics to get creative in solving its speed deficiencies.

Privately, the three-time IndyCar champion and 1986 Indianapolis 500 winner was said to be putting in an extreme number of hours to help the organization turn itself around, and not with a soft target for “as soon as possible.” He wanted it now. But in typical Rahal fashion, he didn’t want to take any credit for the newfound strength the team he co-owns with Mike Lanigan and David Letterman has demonstrated since weathering a brutal month of May.

“You need to talk to Mike Lanigan, for starters, because he’s pushed as hard as anybody to get us to where we are,” Rahal told RACER. “Give him the credit. Go talk to (new COO) Steve Eriksen, who’s been huge for us since he came​​ onboard. Steve’s brought a lot of things managerially and perspective-wise that we needed, and we’re better off for having him. Go talk to (veteran RLL team manager) Rico (Nault), who’s been with me for longer than I can remember, because he’s been getting his hands full this entire time trying to get us moving in the right direction. There’s a lot of others, also, because they’re the ones to talk to instead of me.”

Bobby Rahal, Steve Eriksen, Ricardo Nault and David Salters of HPD — the brain trust that’s helped Rahal Letterman Lanigan go from zero to hero in the span of mere weeks. Michael Levitt/Lumen

Fresh off the team’s first win since August of 2020, RLL’s in-season efforts were rewarded by first-time IndyCar winner Christian Lundgaard, a native of Denmark whose pursuit of Formula 1 stalled and subsequent rerouting to America with RLL proved transformational for the team and the 21-year-old.

Rahal’s son Graham, who was in tears after failing to qualify for the Indy 500 in May, nearly earned pole for the July 2 race at Mid-Ohio, and put on an epic performance on Sunday in Toronto that started in 27th-place and finished in ninth.

And as his father suggested, speaking with Ricardo Nault revealed the rest of how RLL overhauled itself through fixes in engineering and internal culture.

“We felt we had the basis of a good car, but we just got lost for a while — a year and a half, really,” said Nault, the former IndyCar mechanic who ascended upwards to a leadership role many years ago. “And it just got worse. Then had a little bit of restructuring and started by trying to get some buy-in from everybody to help contribute to the process. We had a bunch of people come up with ideas on what to do and we just started pushing together a little bit more than we have in the past.”

Going through RLL’s darkest days helped the group to rediscover its fighting spirit and improve its chemistry as the men and women who comprise the entries for the Rahal’s No. 15 car, the No. 30 for Jack Harvey, and Lundgaard’s No. 45 banded together in the same quest for success.

“We were all down, and everybody had to come together to help each other,” Nault continued. “And Graham, Christian and Jack, they all work really well together to try to make the cars better; nobody holds back. Nobody’s got any secrets. If one guy learns something, he brings it to everyone and it goes around in circles so that way, it helps to elevate the whole organization.”

With Graham’s strong form at Mid-Ohio and now Lundgaard’s practically dominating performance in Toronto, RLL’s spirits are…undampened, and for good reason. Perry Nelson/Lumen

Another area under development for RLL has been with its damper program. Gains made through exhaustive efforts at Indy helped the beleaguered team to acquire more pace through its damper builds, and whether it was Rahal qualifying second on the rolling Mid-Ohio road course or Lundgaard earning pole and dominating on the wickedly bumpy Toronto street circuit, the team has erased a sizable shortcoming in a short amount of time.

“The whole team has been working our damper program for some time and we are really starting to see it pay off,” Nault said before applauding the work done by former Andretti damper specialist Mike Cicciarelli who joined RLL during the offseason.

“Mike brought a lot of new understandings and new ways to look at our damper program, which helps. He’s been a big help, and with a few tweaks, we’re going from nowhere to sitting on poles and winning races.”

Nault closed by sharing his appreciation for the mercurial Dane who, thankfully, will finally shave the awful mustache he committed to wearing until he clinched his first win. Like his driver, Lundgaard’s race engineer Ben Siegel also delivered on the immense talent and promise he’s shown since joining the team in 2022.

“Obviously, Christian is a great talent, and so is Ben — a first-time race engineer with Christian last year who is really coming into strides now,” he said. “Ben does a great job of understanding what it takes and working well with Christian to give him a car that he really likes. And to be fair, I don’t think we had the fastest car out there all weekend, but the whole team played the strategy right in qualifying, and then in the race as well. Everything just fell our way, and you need that sometimes. But this result comes from all the preparation that everyone did along the way.”

Retirement not on the cards for Rahal – yet

Any thoughts of retirement Graham Rahal had during the worst days of a challenging 2023 season have been put to rest. The 17-year IndyCar veteran has designs on adding an 18 th season and maybe more to his record, but the finish line on Rahal’s …

Any thoughts of retirement Graham Rahal had during the worst days of a challenging 2023 season have been put to rest. The 17-year IndyCar veteran has designs on adding an 18th season and maybe more to his record, but the finish line on Rahal’s full-time participation is definitely drawing closer, all thanks to his ever-expanding responsibilities in life and business.

Once the 34-year-old decides how much longer he wants to extend his IndyCar career, a contract will be drafted and signed.

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“Certainly, I’ll be here for a bit,” Rahal told RACER. “I haven’t obviously done anything contract-wise or made any commitments or anything like that. With everything considered right now, we’re not stepping aside, at least next year. But we haven’t come to any sort of agreement with anybody yet.”

Rahal is likely to stay with the family-owned Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing team, but he has been exploring his options elsewhere in the paddock.

“I have called around a little bit, and it’s been nice to see that there is interest throughout the people I have talked to, but we’ll see what happens,” he said of returning to the No. 15 RLL Honda.“The intentions are to keep going for a while. We’ll see what ‘a while’ means, but that’s the intention​​.”

A recent upswing in performance by the RLL team, highlighted by Rahal’s front-row qualifying position for his home race at Mid-Ohio, has been encouraging.

“It’s been good, and somehow, magically, at Mid-Ohio, I remembered how to drive… it’s unbelievable how that happens.” he said with a laugh. “We are headed down the right path. I think there’s been really good stuff that’s been identified and changes that have been made and that’s given us a positive direction overall.

“This weekend will be a big test for us. We were solid [in Toronto] last year, but we’ve struggled on street courses this year. So this weekend’s a big test for us to make sure that we can continue to go down the right path. And we’ll see. But I do think things are headed on the right path. I am confident with what I’m seeing and the actions that are being taken and changes that are being made and direction for next year.”

On top of the turnaround work done by RLL’s existing leadership group, Rahal credits the recent arrival of former Honda Performance Development vice president Steve Eriksen as another difference-maker in his new role as RLL’s chief operating officer.

“I think Steve has been an ace for us,” he said. “He’s done a wonderful job, and I think things will continue to shape up in a positive direction. I’ve worked with Steve forever when he was with Honda and obviously Dad’s known him back since they started with Honda in the 1990s. But the reality is I’ve never worked with him in this sort of capacity, and he’s done a wonderful job.”​

Some promises kept, others slip away for RLL at Mid-Ohio

After the great showing in qualifying shown by the Rahal Letterman Lanigan team at Mid-Ohio, in which Graham Rahal earned a second-place starting position while teammates Christian Lundgaard and Jack Harvey were fifth and 11th, that strong form …

After the great showing in qualifying shown by the Rahal Letterman Lanigan team at Mid-Ohio, in which Graham Rahal earned a second-place starting position while teammates Christian Lundgaard and Jack Harvey were fifth and 11th, that strong form continued into the Honda Indy 200…although pit-lane setbacks made the results less than they might have been. Rahal saw his opportunity for a podium finish dented on his first pit stop and dashed on the final one due to delays in connecting the refueling hose. He persevered to finish seventh, while Lundgaard ran strongly throughout to end up one place higher than he qualified — matching his season best in fourth — and Harvey ran in the top 10 much of the way although he faded to 18th at the finish.

“I would say so, just considering who we are around on track and we were definitely moving forward in the race,” said Lundgaard, when asked by NBC Sports if he felt the team was riding an upswing of momentum, “Considering where we were last year here, none of our cars transferred into Q2, so the RLL team is making progress,” the Dane is hopeful of demonstrating even more of it next time out: “Last year we made progress at Toronto, I think that’s where we started moving forward as a team,” Lundgaard said, “so I’m pretty confident this year we’ll be faster.”

For Rahal, the problems started at the first pit stop where a momentary delay in detaching the fuel hose saw him slip from second and challenging then-race leader Colton Herta to seventh, while the second consigned him to finish in that spot. While understandably disconsolate, Rahal tried to stay positive about the day.

“We win as a team, we lose as a team — obviously I thought the Fifth Third Bank car should have been further forward today, but it’s a quick reminder we need to be better in every phase of the program,” he said.

“Look, I’m disappointed, that’s a fact — it’s going to sting to think about it over the next couple of weeks but we just need to continue to improve in every aspect of the game. We’ll put our our heads down, enjoy the 4th and come back at Toronto.

“This is definitely a solid response for us as a team, but today’s just a quick reminder that not only to do we need to be better with performance in qualifying and everything else but in every phase — and that includes myself too. When you want to compete with [Alex] Palou and guys like that that are clicking in every aspect of the game, it takes a lot and we’ve got a lot of work to do.”

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Rahal leads damp IndyCar warm-up at Mid-Ohio

Rahal Letterman Lanigan’s Graham Rahal topped the speed charts in damp but drying warm-up for this afternoon’s Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio, while Conor Daly got his first laps as Simon Pagenaud’s sub at Meyer Shank Racing. The only incident of note …

Rahal Letterman Lanigan’s Graham Rahal topped the speed charts in damp but drying warm-up for this afternoon’s Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio, while Conor Daly got his first laps as Simon Pagenaud’s sub at Meyer Shank Racing.

The only incident of note came while the track was drying but treacherous off-line. Defending IndyCar champion Will Power found a damp patch entering Turn 4, and fishtailed into the runoff, and thus needed a red flag in order to be rescued.

As the session rolled on, the times dropped toward “fully dry” times, David Malukas of Dale Coyne Racing w/HMD-Honda lapping the 13-turn 2.258-mile course in 1m08.6385s, half a second quicker than Pato O’Ward of Arrow McLaren-Chevrolet.

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With three minutes to go, pole winner Colton Herta jumped into second place, but was then displaced by Scott Dixon of Chip Ganassi Racing. Then Graham Rahal, front-row starter, delivered a 1m08.4255s to land top spot, as Dixon furher improved to displace Malukas.

Devlin DeFrancesco made a late improvement to go fourth fastest ahead of Marcus Ericsson of Ganassi.

Behind Herta, Alexander Rossi was marginally the fastest Arrow McLaren driver ahead of O’Ward, who will have to climb from the very back of the grid after his qualifying faux pas.

He will be joined there by Daly, subbing for Pagenaud as the Frenchman follows IndyCar’s medical protocol after his huge shunt in Saturday practice. The Noblesville, Ind., native did a great job in his first 14 laps in a Meyer Shank Racing-Honda, clocking 12th-fastest lap, just a few hundredths behind teammate Helio Castroneves.

WARMUP RESULTS

STARTING LINEUP/TIRE DESIGNATION

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‘I can finally drive the car the way I want to’ – Rahal

Graham Rahal has expressed his relief and happiness at the Rahal Letterman Lanigan team’s return to form, and his own car’s handling. He qualified second for his home race, the Honda Indy 200, just 0.0432s slower than pole winner Colton Herta. With …

Graham Rahal has expressed his relief and happiness at the Rahal Letterman Lanigan team’s return to form, and his own car’s handling.

He qualified second for his home race, the Honda Indy 200, just 0.0432s slower than pole winner Colton Herta. With teammate Christian Lundgaard fifth and Jack Harvey 11th, it’s a clear signal that the team is continuing to build momentum on road courses, where Lundgaard qualified and finished sixth in Barber Motorsports Park, took pole and finished fourth in the Grand Prix of Indianapolis and qualified and finished seventh at Road America.

These have been the only highlights of the season for a squad that reached its nadir in practice and qualifying at the Indianapolis 500, the consequence of which was a restructure of the engineering department. Now, Saturday’s result appears to also herald a distinct upswing in Rahal’s form, as he seeks his seventh Indy car win — his first for over six years.

“It’s been a long time coming,” the veteran explained. “We’ve been beat-up. We’ve been bruised. We’ve been knocked down. For us as a team to rebound this way, I could have told you last night after the practice, yeah, I was P20, but I told everybody I don’t think that’s real at all.

“And I told the guys in the engineering room, ‘Actually I think I’ve got P2, P3 pace’ and I don’t normally say that unless I’m fairly confident that we do. This morning we went out, ran only one set of blacks, we were right there.

“To be honest with you, this is the first weekend I felt like I’ve had the car to where I can drive it the way I want to drive it, and it’s rewarded me because it’s finally to the place where I can charge the (corner) entries, I can do the things I like to do with my style, and it’s just nice to finally see the result come.

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“It almost feels in a weird way like today you don’t have to drive nearly as hard as you were the last two years combined. You knew the speed was there. You weren’t over-pressuring yourself. You just simply needed to work through it and get there. It certainly was nice to see the result, as I said, for the whole team.

“I think the turnaround has been coming. Detroit was a major disappointment, which worries me a little for Toronto because I think there’s still a lot of questions for us on our street course package, but the road course package — you look at Indy GP, you look Road America, and you look here — we’ve been competitive. Again, it’s good to see that, good to feel the energy, feel the momentum.

“I think we’re finally starting to make changes with the car, as I just said, that they’re responding the right way, the way you’d expect them to, and it’s nice. It’s nice to feel that. More than me, I think it’s just for these guys, to see the smiles on the mechanics’ faces. Those guys, they’ve never had an ounce of quit in them, and they could have for years. To see them excited is worth it.”

Of teammate Lundgaard, he later added: “I think Christian has done a great job because he’s more tolerant of the oversteer slides on entry and things like that. And for me, my style, I want to attack the corner. I want to brake late, brake hard, roll speed with good, good rear confidence, and I’ve struggled with that mightily.”

Rahal remained tight-lipped on what changes he wishes to see at the team in 2024, although he admitted the personnel changes post-Indy had been hard and that, “We had a lot of good people that I think were being held back a little bit. Once we started to unleash them a little bit to realize their full potential, it benefited the entire program, and so we’re starting to see that — at least on road courses.”

However, for now he said his mind was entirely on the Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio, a race he won back in 2015.

“I’m going to focus, honestly, on just tomorrow,” he said. “I know it sounds cliche, but it’s the truth. At this standpoint there’s been a lot of discussions, a lot of conversations back and forth. There’s a lot of thinking to do.

“But right now I’ve got a chance to go win tomorrow. If I can get another win at home, it would mean a hell of a lot to me. So that’s my focus.”

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Graham Rahal closing in on Honda IndyCar start record

Graham Rahal is close to becoming Honda’s record holder for all-time IndyCar starts and joins RACER’s Marshall Pruett to discuss his career-long association with the Japanese auto manufacturer. Or CLICK HERE to watch on YouTube. Presented by: …

Graham Rahal is close to becoming Honda’s record holder for all-time IndyCar starts and joins RACER’s Marshall Pruett to discuss his career-long association with the Japanese auto manufacturer.

Or CLICK HERE to watch on YouTube.

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RACER’s IndyCar Trackside Report at Road America is presented by Skip Barber Racing School.

With multiple locations in the US, Skip Barber Racing School has developed more winning racers than any other school. Their alumni have taken the podium in all facets of motorsports including NASCAR, INDYCAR, SCCA, World Challenge and IMSA. Click to learn more.

Rahal triggers ‘Indy Recovery Plan’

Scraping into the Indianapolis 500 with three of its four entries and seeing his son Graham Rahal bumped from the field by teammate Jack Harvey wasn’t a scenario Bobby Rahal could imagine prior to May 21. Fresh off pole position for the Indianapolis …

Scraping into the Indianapolis 500 with three of its four entries and seeing his son Graham Rahal bumped from the field by teammate Jack Harvey wasn’t a scenario Bobby Rahal could imagine prior to May 21.

Fresh off pole position for the Indianapolis Grand Prix and a strong run for all of his Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing cars on May 13, the shock of seeing Graham fail to qualify was an unexpected lowlight to cap the highlights delivered the previous weekend. Slow at the Indy Open Test in April, the team returned to the big 2.5-mile oval for practice and qualifying after the Indy GP and showed minimal gains.

With Sunday’s Indy 500 offering no kindnesses to RLL as one-off driver Katherine Legge crashed into the pit wall and became the first driver out of the race while full-timers Jack Harvey (18th) and Christian Lundgaard (19th) moved forward from the back of the field but made no impact on the event, Rahal left the track with a firm view of what took place and what needs to change when they return next May for IndyCar’s biggest show.

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“Very disappointed in the performance of our team,” the 1986 Indy 500 winner told RACER. “There’s certainly a lot of introspection; we’ve been there before, not that I don’t take any pride in it, but we’ve been there before. The response will be that we’ll come back and win this race next year. We’re just gonna have to commit ourselves to not just doing things right, but doing the right things. And clearly, probably from a mechanical drag standpoint, we’re not. We’re not where we needed to be.

“Despite the fact that we spent time in the wind tunnel, we obviously missed certain things or just didn’t totally understand what we needed to do. And that’s got experienced people behind it, so you wonder about that. But clearly, it’s cause for introspection, and it’s a cause for determination. We’re not gonna do this again. We’re gonna take our place back where we should be, right up front. Only thing I can say is thank God we don’t have any more high-speed ovals left on the on the schedule. I really felt bad for our drivers because we let them down and obviously let down our sponsors. Thankfully, they’ve all been very supportive, but still, we all expect better.”

Rahal remains committed to getting Jack Harvey up to speed as well as fixing the team’s systemic issues at the Indy 500. Gavin Baker/Motorsport Images

Three years ago, RLL won the Indy 500 with former driver Takuma Sato. Two Indy 500s ago, its newest winner, Team Penske, had two cars — Will Power’s and the affiliate entry for Paretta Autosport’s Simona De Silvestro –fighting like RLL to make it through the Last Chance Qualifying session. Turnarounds are possible, and despite the busy schedule that sees the NTT IndyCar Series go straight from the 500 to race this weekend at the downtown Detroit Grand Prix street festival, Rahal isn’t giving his team a long runway to find fixes to its Indy ills.

“I want the technical staff, as well as the management, [COO] Steve Erickson, [VP of Operations] Ricardo [Nault], to dig in now,” he said. “I asked them for what I call the ‘Indy Recovery Plan.’ And that was asked for right after qualifying. We have several weeks left, and at the end of [June], that plan will be defined. Then we will begin the process of improving our performance. We’re not waiting until the fall or winter. That starts now, because I think there’s a fair amount of work to do, things to look into.

“In the end, we are a proud team. We pride ourselves on our performances and the fact that we’ve won races and won Indy 500s and everything else. And that’s just totally not acceptable with what happened, so we’re starting to do something about that. Now. We’re not going to wait. This year, it was the result of not doing the right things over the last several years, and we paid the price for it.”

Having placed all three drivers in the top eight at the Indy GP, RLL should see an upswing in results as the series heads into a string of road and street courses. And while RLL’s owners are demanding swift changes to its competitiveness on superspeedway, Rahal says that isn’t the case with embattled Jack Harvey, who’s been the subject of intensifying rumors regarding the team’s desire to try a different driver in the No. 30 Honda before season’s end.

“Jack’s our driver,” Rahal said of the Briton who’s in the final year of a two-year deal. “We have time to determine how we want to go forward, and there’s no reason to rush. It’s all about focusing on the upcoming races and doing the best job we can. The chips will fall later and we’ll see where they end up. At this stage, Jack’s in for the season as far as I can see — Jack’s our driver. We are committed to him and I think he’s committed to us.”

Indy 500 Trackside: Friday, May 26 with Rahal and Cusick

Graham Rahal and his team owner Don Cusick join RACER’s Marshall Pruett to discuss their efforts on Carb Day – the final Indy 500 practice session – and Stefan Wilson’s post-surgery progress. Presented by: RACER’s IndyCar Trackside Report is …

Graham Rahal and his team owner Don Cusick join RACER’s Marshall Pruett to discuss their efforts on Carb Day — the final Indy 500 practice session — and Stefan Wilson’s post-surgery progress.

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Legge and Rahal granted Thursday shakedown runs at Indy

Graham Rahal and Katherine Legge will be given 15 minutes to shake down their cars on Thursday following the accident triggered by Legge on Monday. Both drivers will be limited to making trips out of pit lane, running down the backstraight, and …

Graham Rahal and Katherine Legge will be given 15 minutes to shake down their cars on Thursday following the accident triggered by Legge on Monday. Both drivers will be limited to making trips out of pit lane, running down the backstraight, and pitting immediately without completing full laps.

The purpose of the session is to give Rahal, who was asked to drive in place of the injured Stefan Wilson, a chance to get the freshly-built No. 24 Chevy — a replacement after the primary chassis was destroyed when Legge hit Wilson’s car from behind — up to temperature and up to some semblance of speed to allow his Cusick Motorsports/Dreyer & Reinbold Racing crew an opportunity to inspect the car and ensure everything is tight and ready for Friday’s final two-hour practice session.

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Legge will also take part in the 4:30-4:45pm ET session with her rebuilt No. 44 Rahal Letterman Racing Honda to give the RLL crew a chance to perform the same safety checks and sign off on the car’s readiness for Friday and Sunday’s 500-mile race.