New Indy NXT champion Louis Foster will become Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing’s newest full-time NTT IndyCar Series driver as the Briton has been signed to a multi-year deal. The team did not specify which car Foster will drive and sponsorship for …
New Indy NXT champion Louis Foster will become Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing’s newest full-time NTT IndyCar Series driver as the Briton has been signed to a multi-year deal. The team did not specify which car Foster will drive and sponsorship for the entry will be identified at a later date.
“I am really looking forward to working with the team,” Foster said. “Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing have Indy 500 victories, obviously Bobby has won an Indy 500 and there is a great wealth of knowledge with the team. I want to thank Bobby, David and Mike for their faith in my abilities and I want to I can’t wait to start my IndyCar career with the team and hopefully we can have a long and successful career together.
Louis Foster / Image: RLL
“I’m hoping that coming off the experience gained from winning the Indy NXT championship, that will leave me in a good stance to get the ball rolling. This is where the hard work starts. We will start the preparations and make sure we get hit the ground running in St. Pete.”
The 21-year-old is expected to be a quality addition to the three-car organization; Foster is the second driver confirmed by RLL along with team veteran Graham Rahal.
“We are very pleased that we have been able to come to an agreement with Louis to have him drive for the team for the next several years,” Bobby Rahal said. “He obviously dominated Indy NXT in 2024 and we feel he has a big future ahead of him and are happy to support the ladder system IndyCar has created. We look at this as a long-term relationship that will go beyond the existing terms and are very excited to get started on preparations for the 2025 season and his series debut.”
Bobby Rahal and the Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing team have plenty of work to complete before the next iteration of its three-car NTT IndyCar Series outfit can be confirmed. Graham Rahal is the only RLL driver signed to return, and with a prime …
Bobby Rahal and the Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing team have plenty of work to complete before the next iteration of its three-car NTT IndyCar Series outfit can be confirmed.
Graham Rahal is the only RLL driver signed to return, and with a prime vacancy to fill in the No. 45 Honda vacated by new Arrow McLaren driver Christian Lundgaard and uncertainty over Pietro Fittipaldi’s continuation in the No. 30 Honda, Rahal’s roster is in flux. Ongoing negotiations with Midwest grocery store chain Hy-Vee, which RLL introduced to IndyCar, and other sponsors are crucial to the team’s ability to finalize its lineup.
“We’re getting closer,” Rahal told RACER. “We’re working at it, and certainly sponsorship is key to that, as it is with everybody. In the next couple of weeks, we should have one car identified, and then we’ll see what happens after that, but so far, so good. Can’t say who’s looking good, or who’s not, or who we’re thinking of, but we’re progressing, so stay tuned.”
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Along with fellow co-owners Mike Lanigan and David Letterman, the elder Rahal is searching for at least one driver who can help the team to rebound from another season that fell short of expectations. Lundgaard took the baton from Graham Rahal in 2023 as RLL’s top driver after charging to eighth in the final standings, and while he fell back to 11th in 2024 as the team faced ongoing struggles, the Dane was the team’s top performer over the last two seasons.
Identifying the “next Lundgaard” to maintain the standard established by the No. 45 Honda is critical for RLL, and while the team has some young chargers to consider, Rahal sees his son – following a year to forget after placing 18th in the championship – as being in the perfect position to bounce back and lead the revised driver trio forward.
“I have complete confidence in Graham,” the 1986 Indianapolis 500 winner said of his son who’ll turn 36 in January. “This year, I think he had probably more top 12 qualifying results than he did a year ago (from six in 2023 to seven in 2024), but he paid the price with engine penalties. We had seven engine penalties this year, which really hurts. We figured we had 65 grid position penalties amongst the team this year, and that’s hard to recover from, but in any event, [Graham] has still got it. The pace is still there, and the desire is still there.
The younger Rahal is in prime position to lead the next crop of up-and-comers, says father Bobby. Chris Owens/Penske Entertainment
“Clearly, you look beyond him, and there’s a generational change starting to happen in the sense that guys like Scott Dixon and Will Power are all now in their early 40s, mid 40s. I drove to 45, so it can still be done, but you definitely have to be looking at the newer generation. There’s people coming from Europe, people from the Indy NXT paddock, and there’s a lot more younger guys out there looking for rides, so you have to be open and take a longer-term view of who you bring on because that’s the environment right now.
“This happened years ago when I got to IndyCar. Between ’82 and ’84, a lot of new guys came in, a lot of older guys left, and we’re going through the same thing again, so it’ll be interesting because you’ve got a lot of people coming from Formula 2 that have done tests and there’s some good guys there. We’re at that point in the next couple years with the younger generation coming in that we have to plan for.”
RLL has F2 standout Juri Vips on retainer and IndyCar free agents Rinus VeeKay and Linus Lundqvist are among the many drivers who hope to get the nod from the team to replace Lundgaard. The fate of Fittipaldi, whose backers secured the No. 30 entry for the Miami-born Brazilian, is another lingering question for RLL to answer. With adequate sponsorship in hand, Rahal would like to continue the practice of hiring an elite driver to wield the No. 45, and the following decision on who’ll pilot the No. 30 is likely to be informed by the quality of the driver’s skill and funding.
“All I know is, whoever we ask to come join the team, we’re gonna have confidence that they can be competitive and run the in top six, top eight,” Rahal said of the No. 45 car. “When you saw the results of [Linus] Lundqvist, and others that came straight from Indy NXT, it doesn’t seem to be a big jump, and they can get the job done, so that’s good for the series.
“Certainly it’s a really legitimate training ground for guys wanting to make the next step up, and I’m not sure you could always say that. The next six weeks is going to be exciting times for the series.”
The next critical step is trying to keep major sponsor Hy-Vee around. Motorsport Images
Speculation has been rife in relation to RLL and its ability to retain Hy-Vee as the primary sponsor of the No. 45 entry. There have been consistent rumors over the last month of a general reduction in the company’s expenditures on racing, which includes a partnership with Penske Entertainment in the funding and promotion of the doubleheader event at Iowa Speedway, and a possible splitting of its expenditures to partially cover the No. 45 and for Penske to pay for its affiliated AJ Foyt Racing entry for David Malukas.
“Well, we’re not there yet, but certainly I’m hopeful,” Rahal said of signing an extension. “That’s probably going to be one of the things that we’re going to hear about soon. My understanding is that Hy-Vee is cutting back on a lot of their sports properties, and even the [Iowa] event to some extent, is what I hear. I don’t know what that really means, but obviously, there’s still going to be a race in Iowa, but we’re going to know fairly soon.”
On the topic of potentially losing out on sponsorship to the team owned by the series’ owner, Rahal said he isn’t focusing his energies on supposition.
“I would say we’ve had a very strong relationship with everybody at Hy-Vee, so I wouldn’t listen too much to those rumors,” he surmised. “But we’re waiting for a direction from them, and hopefully it’ll be a good one.”
Juri Vips has one chance to make a final impression on Bobby Rahal, David Letterman and Mike Lanigan. The Estonian arrives in Portland, site of the first half of his two-race NTT IndyCar Series debut for RLL in 2023, in a fourth entry for the team …
Juri Vips has one chance to make a final impression on Bobby Rahal, David Letterman and Mike Lanigan.
The Estonian arrives in Portland, site of the first half of his two-race NTT IndyCar Series debut for RLL in 2023, in a fourth entry for the team as it looks to lock in its replacement for the outgoing Christian Lundgaard.
With only Graham Rahal signed for 2025, RLL could also be in the market for a second driver next year if it elects to move on from newcomer Pietro Fittipaldi. For Vips, a strong weekend on the 1.9-mile road course could make the difference in whether he’s chosen to help lead the team in its next chapter.
“Definitely, a lot of movement in the driving market at the moment, and a lot of very, very strong free agents,” Vips told RACER. “I think this opportunity also couldn’t come at a better time, because hopefully I can remind everyone in the paddock that I can still drive and keep my name up in the list of people. I’m super grateful for the opportunity, obviously, from Bobby, and just want to get going already, as you can imagine.”
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Vips impressed on his IndyCar debut in Portland and the following weekend in Monterey, and while he’s only scheduled to compete in Oregon, track familiarity — despite spending nearly a year out of an Indy car — and solid road racing cars from RLL should allow the 24-year-old to give a proper account of his capabilities.
“We’ve done plenty of simulator runs through the year,” he said. “Unfortunately, they didn’t have Portland in the Honda sim, but to be honest, I feel much more prepared than I did last year. OK, I haven’t driven all year, but I already know the track, so naturally in my mind, I have some references from last year. And I’ve been through an IndyCar weekend now, so I know how everything works and how the rhythm of a weekend goes. It’s definitely not easy. I miss the kind of muscle memory of driving the car, but I do feel a lot more prepared than last year.”
Getting through Turn 1 on the first lap and any restarts will be key for Vips, who needs enough of the 110 laps on Sunday to make a statement in the high-pressure audition.
“I will try and do the exact same thing that I did last year, and just stay on the inside, because generally with gravity, if you do have a crash, it tends to migrate to the outside,” he said. “Last year wasn’t actually too messy into Turn 1. But I did manage to gain two spots from the inside last year. So I’m just gonna try and do the exact same thing — find a gap there.
“If I do a good job, I will be able to fight in the top 10 and for the top positions. It’s a good feeling for a driver because you just need to execute. You know that the car is going to be more or less in the window, so I’m just going to keep it simple and focus on my driving.”
Zane Maloney completed his first NTT IndyCar Series test and wants more. Presently fourth in the F2 championship on the strength of two wins and six podiums, Maloney is charting the path for his career when the F2 season ends. Meetings with several …
Zane Maloney completed his first NTT IndyCar Series test and wants more.
Presently fourth in the F2 championship on the strength of two wins and six podiums, Maloney is charting the path for his career when the F2 season ends. Meetings with several IndyCar teams have gone well, and in the test arranged with Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing on Aug. 1, the F2 title contender spent the day in mixed conditions at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on its road course and completed approximately 100 laps in an RLL Dallara DW12-Honda.
As the only car on the track, Maloney didn’t have the luxury of other drivers to use as a benchmark in the hybrid IndyCar, but he’s said to have been fast and efficient, which shouldn’t come as a surprise as other Formula 2 drivers — including RLL’s outgoing Christian Lundgaard, Juri Vips and reigning champion Theo Pourchaire — have been quick upon arrival in the American open-wheel series.
“For a first test, I don’t think it could have gone too much better,” Maloney told RACER. “I came straight from the last round of
Formula 2 in Belgium, did the seat fit, a little bit of simulator and then straight onto the track. The team were very welcoming and went through everything that we needed to be prepared for the test. There was quite a lot of weather, so it was just two hours of running being lost because of the rain. Otherwise, we got some good running in, lots of push laps.
“With the IndyCar tires, compared to Formula 2, there’s a lot more push laps, so you do a lot less warming and cooling and you do a lot more pushing, and that’s always fun as a driver. I felt comfortable straight away with the car, with the team, with the tires. The pace there straight away in the in the dry, and also the few laps that I did in the wet, felt confident straight away. Generally, I think it was a very well-executed day. Of course, there’s still the few hundredth here and there, but with more time in an IndyCar, that I can get.”
Maloney enjoyed the similarities and differences of an IndyCar compared to his regular ride, Rodin Motorsport’s Dallara F2. Andy Hone/Motorsport Images
The 20-year-old Barbados native found a lot of similarities between the heavier, hybrid Dallara IndyCar and the Dallara F2 2024 he races for Rodin Motorsport, the former Carlin Racing team he joined in 2023.
“In Formula 2, the car is already quite heavy, so it’s a similar style of driving,” Maloney said. “Of course, the street circuits are a bit different over in the in the U.S., a bit more bumpy, a bit more going on, so that’s exciting. But in general, it was quite similar to a Formula 2 car.
“I think the biggest thing was the tires that are just very different to the Pirellis. Had to adapt to that. You can definitely feel that it’s a heavy car and it takes a bit more time to stop, a bit more time to turn and to really get settled, but I think that there’s a certain driving style for that which Formula 2 has helped me learn.
“I just loved pushing every lap and really getting the most out of every lap, learning as much as I could, giving the team as much information as I could. And I think we got to a stage at the end of the day where we all learned quite a lot. So, a lot of things to a lot of positive things to move forward with, and that’s all you can ask for in a test.”
With more than half of IndyCar’s teams looking to fill vacant seats or upgrade talent, Maloney is pressing to create opportunities for himself throughout the paddock.
“In Formula 2, there are four rounds left, so I’m really looking to do the best job possible and try to win the championship; full focus on that,” he said. “Of course, everyone’s dream as a kid growing up is Formula 1, but there’s so many things outside of my control, and IndyCar is an amazing championship. So if I had an opportunity in IndyCar, I’d be very grateful, for sure.
“The drivers throughout IndyCar, the teams as well, they’re all top-level teams and drivers. So I think there’s a very good field outside of Formula 1 still. And of course, there’s a lot of street circuits, a lot of ovals, a lot of road courses. IndyCar has a bit of everything. As a driver, that’s very exciting.
“I’m excited to continue my journey in IndyCar for sure, see what is available, what is possible, and see where the future takes me. I’m looking for a very good career in motorsports and I’m just trying to improve myself every day and trying to work with whichever team is best so I can to get the most out of myself.”
Formula 2 championship contender Zane Maloney will conduct his first NTT IndyCar Series on Thursday. The test will take place with Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course, the team has confirmed to RACER. The …
Formula 2 championship contender Zane Maloney will conduct his first NTT IndyCar Series on Thursday. The test will take place with Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course, the team has confirmed to RACER.
The native of Barbados, who holds fourth in the F2 standings with two wins this season, has been actively pursuing opportunities in IndyCar. He will test for an RLL team in search of a replacement for its top performer Christian Lundgaard, who is departing for Arrow McLaren at the end of the season.
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Like Maloney, Lundgaard arrived at RLL with multiple years of F2 experience, and with the Dane’s rerouting to IndyCar, he proved to be a revelation for the Honda-powered squad.
The three-car team owned by Bobby Rahal, David Letterman and Mike Lanigan entered the Olympic break with Lundgaard sitting 11th in the drivers’ standings, Graham Rahal in 17th and Pietro Fittipaldi in 19th.
Bobby Rahal knows he has one of the most coveted IndyCar free agents left on the market with Christian Lundgaard. With Lundgaard’s contract set to expire at the end of the season, and with his manager having tested the waters at other teams with …
Bobby Rahal knows he has one of the most coveted IndyCar free agents left on the market with Christian Lundgaard. With Lundgaard’s contract set to expire at the end of the season, and with his manager having tested the waters at other teams with opportunities to pursue, Rahal wants to keep the impressively fast and consistent product of Denmark in the No. 45 Honda for 2025, and maybe longer, if they can come to terms.
As more seats get filled or are taken off the list of options at rival teams, the narrowing options in the paddock could play to RLL’s favor, but there are no guarantees their top performer — who finished eighth in last year’s championship and leads the team this year in 11th — will be back.
“I’m not sure where else, aside from maybe Penske, that would be better,” Rahal told RACER. “We’ve been as fast as all those other guys at a lot of races. So I don’t know why he’d look elsewhere, but you always are going to just see what the market will bear. But our intent is to re-sign him. And as I’ve said before, I don’t think he’s looking to go anywhere, necessarily.
“But we’ve got to continue to give him good race cars and do a good job for him. We’ll see what happens. And sooner rather than later we’ll know what the scenario looks like. But it’s certainly our intent to keep to keep him.”
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As Rahal told RACER while discussing the future of Juri Vips — another driver in the RLL stable — the team needs to reach a decision with Lundgaard and also figure out how many cars and drivers it will field in 2025.
Along with Lundgaard, RLL veteran Graham Rahal in the No. 15 Honda (15th in the drivers’ standings) and newcomer Pietro Fittipaldi in the No. 30 Honda (20th) are in the mix with its three-car program, and in looking to next season, Rahal said, “Right now, it’s all about finding the financial backing to do whatever we want to do, whether it’s two cars, three cars, four cars, or whatever.”
Along with expanding, a departure by one of the three would make it easier to solve the four-driver puzzle.
“It’s just a matter of we’re putting our head down making sure that we have the financial resource to do a good job for our drivers next year,” Rahal said. “I really can’t tell you exactly what it will look like yet; obviously we like Pietro and we hope he stays. But yes, there’s too many butts, too few seats at this stage. We could run a fourth car. That’s dependent on what Honda or Chevrolet, whoever we’re with next year, might say.
“We really are just looking at putting together all of our sponsorship packages, and we’ve already had a couple of re-ups, so that’s good. It’s also that time of the year where, I hate to say it, anything could happen. It’s just a matter of getting through the next races. Then we have a break after Toronto and we’ll get a better idea on where things could stand.”
With the uncertainty surrounding Honda’s future in IndyCar beyond its current contract that runs through 2026, Rahal, who introduced the Japanese brand to the series under the Rahal-Hogan Racing banner in 1994, wants to stick with the company and do a contract extension of its own if possible.
“We’re fulfilling our agreement, our commitment for this year, and we’re happy to do so,” he added. “All I know is we have had a long relationship with Honda, but the engine count is a big deal these days, and understandably so. We certainly would like to stay with Honda, but never seem to be the automatic choice. We may be put in a position where we have to look elsewhere. I hope not. But we’ll find out.”
In another addition to the never-ending developments in the NTT IndyCar Series’ silly season, Juri Vips is expected to make a return in the coming months with the Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing team. Bobby Rahal wasn’t able to offer Vips a race seat …
In another addition to the never-ending developments in the NTT IndyCar Series’ silly season, Juri Vips is expected to make a return in the coming months with the Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing team.
Bobby Rahal wasn’t able to offer Vips a race seat this year in one of the three RLL Hondas, but the veteran NTT IndyCar Series entrant hasn’t given up on the Estonian. In fact, he wants to give him another chance to show his skills and be considered for a drive in 2025.
The 23-year-old contested two races for RLL to close the 2023 season in the No. 30 Honda formerly driven by Jack Harvey and made his presence felt at Portland where he qualified 18th — directly behind RLL’s Christian Lundgaard in 17th — and 13th at Laguna Seca before being shunted on the opening lap.
Despite his losing out to Pietro Fittipaldi with the No. 30 this season, RLL has kept Vips on the payroll and brought him to the races to learn from the sidelines. At some point over the last eight races, Rahal intends to drop him back into a car — a fourth RLL entry — and see how he performs in a hybrid IndyCar.
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“He’s a great young man and doing a lot of work for us on the simulator work. I know he’d rather be in a real car, and I feel very strongly about giving him a chance, so I expect to see that,” Rahal told RACER.
“Some of this depends on Honda in when they can support us with another engine, but I would think it would be a hybrid car, so later in the summer after Mid-Ohio. We don’t want to do too many races and lose his rookie status.”
With teams cutting or signing a number of drivers during the 2024 season, the pool of free agent talent to consider for new opportunities continues to evolve. Asked if he’d make Vips available to another team if they wanted to test or sign him, the 1986 Indianapolis 500 winner and three-time CART IndyCar Series champion is feeling somewhat protective of his employee.
“The reason we’ve done what we’ve done is I want to see him in our team on a full-time basis,” he said. “So that’s our goal for next year, for sure. We’re not there yet, but we want to keep him in our team. And I think that’s of interest to him, too.”
RLL is letting Vips log more miles in Formula 2, where he was a strong contender from 2020-22 and won three races, and then it’s a matter of locking in the IndyCar race he’ll do between July and September and figuring out where — if the budget is raised — he might fit in the team next year.
“Having said that, he’s doing a tire test for Formula 2 here in the next couple days,” Rahal added. “And so, you know, I’m not against him doing some things for other people so he gets more seat time. But no, our goal is for him to join us full-time and run for us.”
“Right now, it’s all about finding the financial backing to do whatever we want to do, whether it’s two cars, three cars, four cars, or whatever.”
Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing’s Danish ace Christian Lundgaard says his third career podium finish and second on the Indy road course was “the minimum” that he and the team were seeking from the 2024 Sonsio Grand Prix. Lundgaard took the lead from …
Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing’s Danish ace Christian Lundgaard says his third career podium finish and second on the Indy road course was “the minimum” that he and the team were seeking from the 2024 Sonsio Grand Prix.
Lundgaard took the lead from polesitter Alex Palou at the start of the race, went on to lead 35 laps, and finished third behind Palou and Will Power but ahead of Scott Dixon. He described his post-race mood as, “Happy to be disappointed, I would say. Yeah, I think that’s becoming an expression in the RLL engineering truck. Sometimes we’re just happy to be disappointed.
“I’m proud of the team. We qualified well at Barber, and I think considering how we handled Long Beach in terms of strategy — trying to get too much out of what I think we could have hurt us on the pure result. Going into Barber, it was a pure strategy of just get through the race and make sure that we get a good result, and coming here, there was a minimum, which was a podium. We got it, but I wanted it to be a win.”
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The Dane said he was wondering about his choice of a second set of primary Firestones on a day in which the alternate compound was faster and surprisingly durable. But he explained that the only set of alternates he had available before taking fresh ones for the final stint were well worn, and he doubted they would last.
“I think today on our performance we really did the best job that I think we could on the first two stints,” he said. “We were a little bold trying to put on another sticker set of primaries for the third stint, but the alternative was a very used alternate tire that we had to [run] a long way, and I preferred the primary tires there.
“The red tires were the preferred tires today, but going into the race, I think everybody was in the unknown. Everybody had a question mark — is it going to be 50/50 or 70/30 in terms of one compound being preferred? …I chose the sticker primaries because we were one of the most competitive cars in qualifying on blacks, on the primary tires. I didn’t see a reason why not to use them.
“But I think Alex was just fast today. He was fast here last year in May, in August. He’s fast wherever we go, really.”
The Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing IndyCar team is preparing for a significant change to its engineering group. Formula 1 aerodynamics expert Stefano Sordo joined RLL as its new technical director with plenty of fanfare in September of 2022, and …
The Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing IndyCar team is preparing for a significant change to its engineering group.
Formula 1 aerodynamics expert Stefano Sordo joined RLL as its new technical director with plenty of fanfare in September of 2022, and after informing the team of his intent to return to F1, the Italian will exit his post after the May 26 Indianapolis 500.
Following a humbling month of May in 2023 when one of the RLL entries owned by Bobby Rahal, Mike Lanigan, and David Letterman failed to qualify, Rahal and Lanigan made sizable investments into the team’s engineering group, which have made the team more competitive under Sordo’s management.
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“He’s working through our month of May stuff; we put a lot of work into our Indy ‘recovery project,’ as Bobby calls it,” RLL COO Steve Eriksen told RACER. “So he’s looking forward to seeing that through to its conclusion. The whole engineering group that he’s assembled is pretty impressive. We’ve got some really high-level folks in our program these days, which is awesome.
“And he’s working through seeing that completed with a successful month of May, given the challenges we had last year. I think we’re going to be in a lot better spot, not only because everyone of our own work, but also because Honda has put in a ton of work, too. We’re excited about that.”
Prior to the arrival of Sordo and Eriksen, RLL relied upon an ageing research and development model in which the team’s race engineers, performance engineers, and assistant engineers used whatever limited time they had between races to look for areas where more overall speed could be found and applied to their cars. With renewed financial commitments from Lanigan Rahal, RLL spent heavily on hiring more engineers and developing a new full-time R&D program that functions as its own entity within the team.
With the bolstered engineering team and structure in place, the impending exit of RLL’s technical director should be less of a disruption. At most of the other IndyCar teams, the loss of a technical director would have dire competitive consequences, but thanks to RLL’s relatively flat organizational chart, Sordo’s departure isn’t expected to affect the team’s on-track performance.
While Eriksen declined to comment on the details of Sordo’s upcoming departure, he did say that rather than start a search for a new technical director, the quality of the people in the engineering group could inspire RLL to rely on those within the team to lead it into the future.
“I think we’ve built up such a strong team of people that I feel like we’ve got the right group in place to be able to do great things going forward,” Eriksen said. “You spend a fair amount of time investing in good people and then the payoff comes later. And that’s absolutely the case here.
“We’re going to see the benefits of the team that Stefano put together far into the future. And definitely Bobby and Mike have been so supportive of that, which is absolutely wonderful.”
Eriksen made another move in recent weeks to strengthen the team’s Indy 500 resources by signing former RLL driver and 1999 Indy 500 winner Kenny Brack to support Graham Rahal, Christian Lundgaard, Pietro Fittipaldi, and two-time Indy 500 winner Takuma Sato.
Similar to the roles three-time Indy winner Dario Franchitti plays with Chip Ganassi Racing and 2013 Indy winner serves for Arrow McLaren, Brack brings a layer of insight and observation from a driver’s perspective that was warmly receive at the April Indy Open Test.
“I was so impressed with him,” Eriksen said. “He’s a megastar. My original thinking was, we put so much work into improving the cars, why not work to improve the drivers with the help of an Indy 500 winner? And Kenny sees so many things; his ability to observe and feed those observations back to our drivers and back to us has really been invaluable.”
Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing’s Christian Lundgaard flirted with being the fastest driver across the first three test sessions at The Thermal Club, and in the fourth and final outing, the Dane clinched first-place as the field of 27 drivers spent …
Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing’s Christian Lundgaard flirted with being the fastest driver across the first three test sessions at The Thermal Club, and in the fourth and final outing, the Dane clinched first-place as the field of 27 drivers spent the latter part of the two-hour window performing qualifying simulations.
Lundgaard’s 1m38.220s run, the fastest of the event, came amid huge gusts of wind and sand storms that caused a delay to the start of the session. Well behind Lundgaard was the Chevy brigade of Team Penske’s Will Power (+0.420s) and Scott McLaughlin (+0.504s), and the Arrow McLaren trio of Alexander Rossi (+0.591s), Pato O’Ward (+0.658s) and Callum Ilott (+0.669s).
“The wind actually helps you in all [the] really fast stuff,” Power told RACER. “Obviously going down the back straight you get a big tailwind, but then it’s not as good under braking. It seems like it should be slow, but it’s actually quite fast.”
The rapid-fire day concludes with qualifying for Sunday morning’s heat races starting at 5 p.m. PT on Peacock.
