Rahal Letterman Lanigan – Page 2

2024 IndyCar form guide: Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing

RAHAL LETTERMAN LANIGAN RACING No. 15 Honda: Graham Rahal (15th in 2023 championship) No. 30 Honda: Pietro Fittipaldi (did not compete) No. 45 Honda: Christian Lundgaard (8th in 2023 championship) How soon is now The chronicles of RLL in 2023 are …

RAHAL LETTERMAN LANIGAN RACING

No. 15 Honda: Graham Rahal (15th in 2023 championship)

No. 30 Honda: Pietro Fittipaldi (did not compete)

No. 45 Honda: Christian Lundgaard (8th in 2023 championship)

How soon is now

The chronicles of RLL in 2023 are well known: Stumbled hard out of the gates; miserable Indy 500 where Graham Rahal failed to qualify; hardcore rebound that delivered Christian Lundgaard’s first IndyCar win and an impressive close to the season across all three cars — including Juri Vips, the late replacement for Jack Harvey — which gave rise to optimism for how the team might launch its 2024 campaign.

It’s overstating the obvious, but Bobby Rahal’s head would explode if the new season starts like the last. For all of the additional money invested by RLL’s owners and sponsors to hire more people and pursue more speed, this truly is the one team in the series that needs to make an immediate impact for its own sake.

The good news is that based on what they’ve done during the offseason, the investments should pay off.

Smart change

Veteran RLL mechanic-turned-team manager Ricardo Nault had the look last season of a man who hadn’t slept for a year, and it was for a good reason: He was leading the team’s IndyCar and IMSA GTP programs at the same time, which added up to an ugly amount of travel and routine exhaustion.

Although he will be missed in the IndyCar paddock, RLL has taken mercy on Rico and assigned him to manage its factory BMW GTP effort alone, and elevated driver-turned-chief-mechanic Derek Davidson to the role of team manager for RLL’s IndyCar program. Davidson’s a wonderful choice for the position; he’s among the most humble and highly respected people within the organization. Rico leaves a big void, but Davidson will continue what Nault’s built, have the ability to only focus on IndyCar, and forge his own way of doing things that will benefit all involved.

Foyt swap

It’s not uncommon for IndyCar teams to hire personnel from each other’s programs, but it is rare when you get a swap of staff in the same exact roles. That’s the case with race engineer Michael Armbrester, who left RLL and the No. 30 Honda, to join A.J. Foyt Racing and engineer its second car, the No. 41 Chevy for Sting Ray Robb. In his place, Danielle Cucchiaroni, the former race engineer on Foyt’s second car (who moved to its primary car last season), has gone to RLL to…engineer the No. 30 for Fittipaldi.

Six years after his IndyCar debut, Pietro Fittipaldi finally has a full-time opportunity. Chris Owens/Penske Entertainment

Primetime Pietro

Pietro Fittipaldi’s IndyCar career has been a series of stops and starts. The 27-year-old from Florida is a veteran in one sense; he made his IndyCar debut in 2018, but since then, he’s completed just nine races in two partial seasons.

The fun-loving member of the famed Brazilian racing family has amassed plenty of top-tier sports car experience and even made two Formula 1 starts since he first appeared for Dale Coyne Racing, but the one thing Fittipaldi hasn’t had is a lot of consistent open-wheel races in the upper echelon of the sport. All of that changes with his first full-time drive in IndyCar with RLL. So what can we expect from Pietro? He’s been quick at times, but don’t mistake his age and deep racing experience for being ready to knock a Palou or Newgarden off of their thrones.

This is very much of a development year for Fittipaldi, who has the talent and the training to be an excellent IndyCar driver. Placing expectations on him to be that guy from the first race in a new team with a new race engineer would be unfair, but I don’t think it will take long for him to get in a groove and start delivering for RLL.

Second for Stefano

RLL’s new technical director Stefano Sordo, fresh from a lifetime spent in Formula 1, needed some time last season to acclimate himself to IndyCar’s spec car, oval racing, and a lot of new tracks. Towards the end of the year, RLL’s drivers were extremely complimentary of Sordo’s input to the team’s engineering group and its future direction, and the flattery continues as RLL is confident the Italian will have a much greater influence in all areas of performance.

Circling back to those big offseason investments, a lot of money went into hiring more engineers — Rahal says they nearly doubled the size of the department since 2023, and they’ve also brought in the excellent David Cripps as the head of oval R&D. A glaring weakness for RLL last year was its relatively small engineering team — compared to the huge engineering staffs elsewhere in the paddock — and that has largely been addressed.

On the clock

Christian Lundgaard is among the most coveted drivers in IndyCar, and with his RLL contract up at the end of the season, he’s another young charger who should draw plenty of interest if he chooses to leave.

It’s an interesting situation for the Dane to ponder. At any team that was above RLL in the standings, Lundgaard would be a powerful addition, but he wouldn’t become the No. 1 driver at a Arrow McLaren, Chip Ganassi Racing, or Team Penske, if they had vacancies to fill. At best, he’d be the No. 2, which wouldn’t be bad, but he’d be leaving an improving team where he’s established himself as the No. 1.

So that leaves it in the hands of RLL to make Lundgaard more competitive and give him a reason to stay. But we still have that question of whether it would be wiser to be the No. 1 at a team that’s on the move, but isn’t where it wants to be at the moment, or jump ship to a front-running team, and likely earn more money and win more races, but know that you’ll always fall behind a Pato O’Ward, Alex Palou or Josef Newgarden in the team’s eye.

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RLL reveals Fittipaldi Indy 500 livery

Pietro Fittipaldi’s Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing entry for the Indianapolis 500 and Detroit Grand Prix will carry primary sponsorship from 5-Hour Energy. “We’ve been incredibly impressed by the RLL team in their preparation and professionalism and …

Pietro Fittipaldi’s Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing entry for the Indianapolis 500 and Detroit Grand Prix will carry primary sponsorship from 5-Hour Energy.

“We’ve been incredibly impressed by the RLL team in their preparation and professionalism and wanted to quickly expand our collaboration beyond the associate sponsorship,” said company president Jeff Sigouin. “Therefore, we’ve become the primary sponsor for the longest and biggest race of the year — the Indy 500 — and of our hometown race in Detroit. Both events require focus, energy and stamina to win… and those attributes are right up our alley.”

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In a week where the colors red, yellow, and black have featured prominently on new IndyCar liveries from Chip Ganassi Racing with Alex Palou’s car and Sting Ray Robb’s A.J. Foyt Racing entry, Fittipaldi’s No. 30 Honda continues the trend with its 5-Hour design.

“I’m very excited to have 5-hour Energy as my primary sponsor for the legendary Indy 500 and for their home race, the Detroit Grand Prix,” Fittipaldi said. “The 5-hour Energy Honda is one of the best-looking race cars I have ever driven and looks extremely fast. I’m looking forward to chasing great results on track with them all season and especially at the iconic Indy 500 and their home race in Motor City.”

Rahal Letterman Lanigan pushing ahead with recruitment drive

Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing hopes to fill more than 10 vacancies within its NTT IndyCar Series program. Among its particular needs, RLL is seeking to hire all manner of engineers as its technical ranks have been depleted since the season ended in …

“There’s really two things going on,” RLL COO Steve Eriksen told RACER. “One is yes, with Ganassi trying to hire however many people for their fifth car, and McLaren paying McLaren wages for people, there’s a lot of competition for talent happening. And some of the numbers that are being thrown around are, frankly, quite crazy. Unless you’ve got a benefactor that’s covering all those costs, it’s tough to cover it with sponsorship. That’s one thing that’s going on.”

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Under a new engineering initiative created by RLL technical director Stefano Sordo, the three-car team is also trying to expand its engineering group to better match the size and depth found within its championship-winning rivals.

“The other thing is under Stefano, he has created an organizational structure for the future that he’s been implementing,” Eriksen added. “And so a portion of the positions are to fill that structure up in the way that he’s laid out. So we’ve actually got a number of people that have started and some other ones that are starting in January, that are part of that build up so that we have an engineering organization that is prepped for success in the future.”

RLL got off to a rough start last season as its off-season engineering efforts did not deliver the improvements that were anticipated. Ovals were the biggest problem where all four of RLL’s Indianapolis 500 entries were slow and team veteran Graham Rahal failed to qualify for the race.

Eriksen, the ex-Honda Performance Development VP who joined the team in January and brings exceptional leadership and operational skills to the team, saw value in Sordo’s revised approach to RLL’s engineering organizational chart and has supported the necessary expansion that’s under way.

“I reviewed the structure that Stefano was proposing,” he said. “I was worried that it would be him coming from Formula 1 and having champagne tastes on a beer budget, but in reality, what he proposed was quite sensible. And I said, ‘This looks good, but we need to be essentially ‘budget neutral’ to do that.’ So that required some reshuffling of the makeup of the group to do that, and the net effect is we’ll have more people in engineering than what we started with.

“He’s bringing in a combination of people with IndyCar experience, some of which have already started and are already helping us out, and some that are coming from his relationships in Formula 1 that will build out that that chart.”

After placing too much reliance on its race engineers to oversee all of its engineering research and development projects in recent years, RLL is investing in dedicated R&D personnel to complement its race engineering teams attached to the Nos. 15, 30, and 45 Honda.

“In the past, I think one of the challenges we’ve had has been that unlike Ganassi for example, where they have an R&D group, and that R&D group does work year-round for anything that’s needed, whether it’s IndyCar, IMSA, Extreme E, or whatever, that’s not what we’ve had,” Eriksen said.

“It’s definitely the way you want to go, because progress can be made all year, regardless of what race you’re traveling to. And at Rahal, what I found was that they had depended entirely on the race engineers as their R&D staff, and you can see where that’s a problem. So we are building up staff that can be year-round, dedicated to making the cars go faster. And that’s where some of those new positions we’re working to fill have come from.”

Looking for a new career opportunity? Come join us! We’ve got the following positions open:

⭐ Graphics Installer
⭐ Transport Driver
⭐ Mechanic
⭐ Apprentice Mechanic
⭐ Bodywork Mechanic
⭐ Composites Technician
⭐ Wiring Technician
⭐ Performance Engineer
⭐ Data Engineer
⭐… pic.twitter.com/UHOdXVlw0Y

— Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing (@RLLracing) November 3, 2023

Fittipaldi joins Rahal Letterman Lanigan for 2024

Pietro Fittipaldi will make his NTT IndyCar Series return with Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, stepping into the No. 30 Honda piloted for most of 2022-2023 by Jack Harvey and by Juri Vips during the final two races of the recently-completed season. …

Fittipaldi, who drove for Dale Coyne Racing during two stints starting in 2018, completes RLL’s three-car lineup led by Christian Lundgaard and Graham Rahal, who is expected to sign another extension to remain in the family-owned team.

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“I am extremely proud and honored to join Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing,” Fittipaldi said. “With the experience I’ve gained over the last few years in F1 and other racing series, I am looking forward to the challenge of racing in IndyCar, one of the most competitive and versatile racing series in the world. I want to thank Mr. Rahal, Mr. Lanigan, and Mr. Letterman for the opportunity and their trust and confidence in me. I can’t wait to get started.”

Fittipaldi’s latest duties have involved Formula 1 where the 27-year-old served as Haas F1’s test and reserve driver and in various sports car racing outings, primarily in Europe.

Vips was another leading candidate for the No. 30 opportunity after impressing the team in Portland and Monterey, but RLL opted for Fittipaldi, who also brings extensive oval experience to the operation.

“I’m very pleased that we’ve been able to have Pietro join RLL as the driver of the No. 30 car,” team co-owner Bobby Rahal said. “He has had previous experience in IndyCar in doing partial seasons with Dale Coyne Racing and impressively qualifying 13th at Indianapolis in 2021.

“I got to meet him then and since that time he has worked hard to become the reserve driver for Haas F1’s team. And from our discussions, I have been impressed with the maturity and experience that he will now bring to our program. I look forward to seeing what he can do over a full season of IndyCar competition in 2024.”

Rahal Letterman Lanigan’s secrets to the perfect wrap change

No NTT IndyCar Series team does more livery changes between races than Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, and with yet another new wrap to apply to Graham Rahal’s No. 15 Honda, team manager Ricardo Nault explains how the process works as seen in the …

Or click HERE to watch on YouTube.

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Lundgaard leads second Laguna IndyCar practice

Christian Lundgaard topped the second NTT IndyCar Series practice session at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca on a morning where preparations were again interrupted by red flags. Lundgaard’s best of 1m07.6154s in the No.45 Rahal Letterman Lanigan …

Christian Lundgaard topped the second NTT IndyCar Series practice session at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca on a morning where preparations were again interrupted by red flags.

Lundgaard’s best of 1m07.6154s in the No.45 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Honda came with 20 minutes still on the clock, and to some extent was insulated against further improvement by a stoppage that ate up a large chunk of the remaining time. Ed Carpenter Racing’s Rinus VeeKay came closest with a 1m07.6548s that put the Dutchman on top for about 10 seconds before Lundgaard completed his lap.

VeeKay was a little fortunate to have simply been on the track long enough to set his time after he spun in Turn 5 during the opening minutes and came to rest in the middle of the track perpendicular to the approaching cars. Some quick hands from Romain Grosjean saved VeeKay from being T-boned by the Andretti Honda, and VeeKay was able to get himself going again.

Scary spin in practice for @rinusveekay 😬

📺: Peacock #INDYCAR // #FirestoneGP pic.twitter.com/WybrIZ6Cc2

— NTT INDYCAR SERIES (@IndyCar) September 9, 2023

The late red came courtesy of Santino Ferrucci, or more specifically, a component in the back of his car that began blowing white smoke as he exited Turn 9 with 11 minutes remaining. By the time the No. 14 Foyt Chevy had been retrieved there was just under four minutes remaining, and the track was too congested after session returned to green for any meaningful improvements.

Alex Palou wound up third fastest ahead of early session leader Alexander Rossi, leaving Kyle Kirkwood to complete the top five.

The low grip level away from the racing line, along with the sharp contrast between the grip level on the track surface and the painted curbs, continued to cause problems, and the 60 minutes were loaded with cars running off and into the gravel.

Most continued unscathed, however Pato O’Ward’s No. 5 Arrow McLaren Chevy needed a new left-front corner after he went off and hit the wall at Turn 3 10 minutes in. Later, Will Power’s No. 12 Team Penske Chevy snapped around at the entry to the Corkscrew and sent him into the gravel backwards. He required help from the AMR Safety Team to get the car pointed in the right direction again, but there was no apparent damage.

UP NEXT: Qualifying, Saturday, 2:00pm PT.

RESULTS

Rahal fires warning shot – Portland race setup better than qualifying

Graham Rahal, who captured his second straight road course pole position at Portland Saturday, says his race setup is even stronger than his qualifying setup. The IndyCar veteran edged last year’s pole-winner Scott McLaughlin by 0.033s, just two …

Graham Rahal, who captured his second straight road course pole position at Portland Saturday, says his race setup is even stronger than his qualifying setup.

The IndyCar veteran edged last year’s pole-winner Scott McLaughlin by 0.033s, just two races after outpacing the field on the Indianapolis road course. He’s now confident that his People Ready-backed Rahal Letterman Lanigan Honda has the inherent pace to keep him at the front all day Sunday.

“I think our race car is going to be better than our qualifying car,” he said after using fresh primary Firestones to beat the opposition who all ran the softer alternates. “I said that at Indy GP, I think we showed that, and I think here we’re in pretty good position.

“Obviously it was nice to run the blacks [primaries]. I think Firestone has done a good job here. The tire is very, very tricky though, the red and the black, frankly. There’s big deg. The peak is very, very early. I think reds after lap two are pretty well gone.

“This morning [second practice] we decided not to run as many sets as most guys. I think everybody in the field except for the RLL cars used two sets of tires this morning or some used two yesterday [first practice], one this morning. We just used one per session, and we wanted to try to keep a set, and everything worked out today. Thank God for that.

“We’re excited for tomorrow and hopefully we can get People Ready a win, and man, it would just feel good after all these years and close calls to win again.”

Rahal, who is seeking his first race victory since capturing both rounds in the Detroit double-header in 2017, is hopeful that full course cautions do not come into play and that he’ll do the majority of the leading.

“I feel the level of the driver, the talent level has increased so much,” he said. “We don’t get as many yellows anymore, so hopefully tomorrow we can have a really clean start. We can control this race and make it pretty straightforward [on] strategy.

“I think the reds are going to throw a lot of people for a twist tomorrow. Obviously the track temp and everything should be cooler tomorrow, but this afternoon [final practice] will be very interesting to see how the degradation is. This race has always been a red race…and I think we might see some different stuff this year, which is why we were keeping all those blacks, frankly, to be able to go into the race with…

“The hotter the temp, I think it’s going to kill the reds. They saturate very quickly. I think they get very hot, and it creates further problems. But tomorrow is a cooler day, too, and if you’re up front, God bless we have a good start and we can do that. When you’re in that position, I think you can try to take care of them and maintain the reds a little bit better.

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“To do this [110-lap race] in two [pit stops], you’ve got to go, what, 35, 36 laps on your reds? That’s a lot to ask. I’ve already done it this weekend on blacks, so I know the blacks can do it and do it competitively, but it’s a lot to ask of the reds, I think. Most people won’t do it, too, to be clear, but if you tried…”

Rahal, who said he “really struggled with the reds – a lot of what we had to do today was just to get the car to rotate for those specifically” was asked by RACER to explain where and why he felt the primaries were superior.

“To be honest, it’s everywhere. I don’t think the tires are that different. The reason I went to blacks was because, on the very first outing, I was P1 in group one on the blacks, and I did like a 58.30s or something, so my red pace wasn’t much quicker at all. That’s why at the end I just felt, ‘Hey, I don’t think I’m going to be able to do that again on reds,’ and so I went for the blacks.

“I think that the front tire gets really heat-saturated and it gives up. It’s like [Turns] 10, 11 – 10 you’re flying, 11, and then you get to 12 and the tire is just hot and it gives up and is pretty lazy.

“To get it to rotate, you’re doing a lot of stuff that’s not very good for the race. Like I said, I think we’ve just got to go back on that a little bit.”

Asked if there was anything particularly responsible for his new-found pace in qualifying – this was only his fifth pole in 250-plus IndyCar races – Rahal explained: “Christian [Lundgaard, teammate] came up to me and said, ‘Oh, you’re the best coach I’ve ever been around,’ and that’s what hit me, and I thought, ‘Well, I’m going to close this…book and we’re going to move on!’

“Christian has done an exceptional job of bringing in speed, and you saw last year he struggled with race craft. He could be fast, but on race day I was always confident that we could get him. He’s come back this year, and not only has he had the speed, but his race craft has been amazing. Typically he’s been able to replicate what we’ve been able to do in the past, which is to go forward on Sundays and put himself in a good spot. A lot of this comes down to just being pushed hard.

“But again, you can be pushed hard. It doesn’t mean that the result is going to happen. You can feel the pressure. You can feel that you want to go faster, you want to get a pole, but ultimately all the pieces of the puzzle have to be together, and that’s what’s kind of nice right now is it just feels like the whole organization has come together and the engineering staff has done an amazing job, the mechanics who have had their backs up against the wall and dealt with a lot the last few years have stuck with it, so they deserve it.

“A culmination of all those things is equaling some results.”

Rahal pips McLaughlin, Herta to another pole in Portland

Graham Rahal took his second pole position in three races for Sunday’s BitNile.com Grand Prix of Portland after grabbing a fresh set of primary tires in the Firestone Fast Six and fighting off the best Penske, Andretti and Ganassi cars. The Rahal …

The Rahal Letterman Lanigan Honda of Rahal, which also started from pole on the Indianapolis road course last month, edged last year’s Portland polesitter Scott McLaughlin by barely more than 0.03s to claim top spot. It is the first time Rahal has scored more than one pole in a season since 2009.

McLaughlin was the only Penske driver to make it through to the Firestone Fast Six, while title contenders Scott Dixon and Alex Palou also got to the final segment of qualifying and will roll off fourth and fifth respectively.

Firestone Fast Six

McLaughlin and Colton Herta started the session with a supposed tire advantage, having put one fewer lap on their Firestone alternates, and started the session on primaries. Palou, the championship leader, went out straight away on his alternates and delivered a 58.6972s effort on his first flyer which he lowered marginally to 58.6505s next time by. He then pitted to grab a second set of reds.

Meanwhile, Rahal went fastest on a fresh set of primary tires, a 58.3195s, and McLaughlin tried and failed to usurp him, falling just 0.033s short. Herta’s third and final flyer went wrong when he lost time at Turn 7 and he wound up a further 0.1s behind.

Ganassi’s Scott Dixon nipped teammate Palou by 0.0689s to get a spot on the fourth row, while Pato O’Ward took sixth.

Callum Ilott went straight out on alternate tires, at the track where he made his IndyCar race debut two years ago. However, before he could lay down his faster second lap, out came the red flag for a hefty hit for Josef Newgarden at the exit of Turn 12, after he launched off the curbs on the outside and into the tire wall. Naturally, the two-time champion was out and will start 12th.

Red flag comes out in Round 2 of qualifying after this incident for @josefnewgarden.

📺: Peacock#INDYCAR // #PortlandGP pic.twitter.com/XHFgRBVtWD

— NTT INDYCAR SERIES (@IndyCar) September 2, 2023

The session resumed with seven minutes remaining and everyone ran one more lap on hard tires, except for Ilott, of course. Dixon, Felix Rosenqvist and McLaughlin sat at the top of the times at this stage.

Into the pits to grab alternates, the 11 remaining cars took to the track once more, but in Rosenqvist’s case, not for long, as he pitted again to report that “something” was broken.

Meanwhile, McLaughlin delivered a 58.0777s to go P1, chased by Herta, ahead of O’Ward, Palou and Dixon. Rahal just got in, and Will Power should easily have bounced him out, but the No. 12 Penske Chevy ran wide in Turn 7, so its left side wheels went into the dirt and didn’t accelerate. Even so, he fell only 0.05s short of progressing.

Ilott did a fine job to grab eighth ahead of Alexander Rossi and Marcus Ericsson.

Q1 Group 2

Palou worked down to a 58.6784s on primary tires, 0.0354s ahead of Saturday morning’s fastest man, McLaughlin. Agustin Canapino went out on alternates and delivered third fastest time. Ericsson had an off and accidentally held up Ganassi teammate Dixon, although they were fourth and fifth on the harder compound.

Once everyone grabbed the reds, Palou and McLaughlin remained up top, but Palou pushed the benchmark to 57.9651s, with O’Ward in third for Arrow McLaren ahead of Dixon, Rossi and Ericsson.

Marcus Armstrong of Ganassi and Kyle Kirkwood of Andretti Autosport just missed the cut, surprisingly, ahead of Rahal Letterman Lanigan’s IndyCar debutant Juri Vips. Canapino wound up 10th, ahead of Helio Castroneves and David Malukas.

Tom Blomqvist, IMSA champion, was 14th for Meyer Shank Racing, 0.6s off teammate Castroneves.

Q1 Group 1

With the ambient temperature at 80 degrees and track temperature nudging north of 102 degrees, the opening group took to the track with Newgarden leading the way, while several drivers making a clear effort to immediately separate themselves from the car in front, so as to lay down a decent banker lap on Firestone’s harder primary tire. The exception was Ryan Hunter-Reay who started out with the softer alternate tires on his Ed Carpenter Racing Chevrolet.

On his second lap, Santino Ferrucci drifted his AJ Foyt Racing Chevrolet wide into the final corner, Turn 12, but got himself out of the sand and continued.

Rahal continued to show RLL’s promise here, laying down a 58.3956s lap at 121.078mph on his fourth tour, shading Rosenqvist’s Arrow McLaren Chevrolet, before everyone pitted for the reds.

Herta, Ilott and Romain Grosjean all jumped Rahal on this softer compound, then Rosenqvist produced a 57.8967s (122.121mph) to grab P1, ahead of even Herta’s improved time. Newgarden and Power got through, split by Rahal, while Ilott was a happy surprise for Juncos Hollinger Racing.

The major shock was Christian Lundgaard, who got his first lap in on reds but found traffic on his second – the faster lap – and failed to advance. Unfortunately, he was also the car who Grosjean blamed for getting in his way and preventing him advancing. Rinus VeeKay, after setting some impressive times in practice, came within 0.0165s of usurping Ilott and getting through to Q2.

RESULTS

Friday practice report with RLL new-hire Juri Vips

RACER’s Marshall Pruett looks at the outcome of Friday’s 75-minute practice session for the NTT IndyCar Series and closes with a quick visit from Juri Vips, who ran 15th on debut for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing. Or click HERE to watch on YouTube.

Or click HERE to watch on YouTube.

Lundgaard paces Friday IndyCar practice in Portland

Rahal Letterman Lanigan’s Christian Lundgaard topped the first practice session for the BITNILE.COM Grand Prix of Portland ahead of Kyle Kirkwood and championship leader Alex Palou. With their extra set of primaries, the rookies hit Oregon’s …

Rahal Letterman Lanigan’s Christian Lundgaard topped the first practice session for the BITNILE.COM Grand Prix of Portland ahead of Kyle Kirkwood and championship leader Alex Palou.

With their extra set of primaries, the rookies hit Oregon’s 1.964-mile 12-turn Portland International Raceway first, but 12 minutes into the session, it was last year’s fourth-place starter Christian Lundgaard who first cracked the 1-minute barrier with a 59.4934s effort. He then improved on this marginally, then significantly, getting down to 59.0588s.

Ganassi’s Marcus Armstrong and Foyt’s Benjamin Pedersen then joined him in the sub 1-minute category, before this pair were split by Rinus VeeKay (Ed Carpenter Racing Chevrolet).

After 18 minutes, Felix Rosenqvist set fourth fastest time, then understeered off at Turn 12, his Arrow McLaren Chevy making gentle contact with the tire barrier and bringing out the red flag. For that, he would be put in the sin bin for five minutes.

Teammate Pato O’Ward, a winner here in Portland in Indy Lights, moved up to second when action resumed four minutes later, then set a 58.9334s on his eighth lap, while Ryan Hunter-Reay – who will suffer a six-place grid drop for an early engine change – dropped his Ed Carpenter Racing Chevy at Turn 12 but found enough asphalt to get the car slowed down and resumed without a session stoppage. However, a second red flew when Santino Ferrucci ran wide out of Turn 6 and spun into Turn 7 and stalled his Foyt car there.

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With 37 minutes of the 75-minute session to go, Ganassi’s title contenders made their presence felt, with Palou – 2021 Portland winner and IndyCar champion – going top with the first 120mph lap of the session, a 58.9168s, while Scott Dixon slotted into third, 0.13s behind.

Tom Blomqvist, the IMSA champion in his second outing in the Meyer Shank Racing team, had a wild moment through the Turn 1 chicane but after knocking a sign aside, he kept it all together and continued, just before Hunter-Reay spun exiting Turn 12 onto the main straight and stalled, bringing out the third red.

Will Power did a 180 degree spin exiting Turn 2 and used the Turn 1 runoff to resume, while Indy road course pole-winner Graham Rahal emphasized RLL’s pace with sixth fastest, before Armstrong improved to third, while Devlin DeFrancesco was quickest of the Andretti Autosport Hondas.

Lundgaard was the first driver to switch to Firestone’s alternate rubber, but it was VeeKay on old primaries who climbed to P1 with a 58.8474s, then trimmed it to 58.7843s. Lundgaard made his soft compound count with a 58.1776s – 121.531mph – and Kirkwood used the reds to slot into second, 0.1470s behind him.

Palou’s first flyer on reds also put him into the 121mph bracket in third, while Rosenqvist and Alexander Rossi ensured all Arrow McLarens were in the top eight, with Romain Grosjean (Andretti) in the top six. When attempting to join his teammate, Colton Herta hit the grass out of Turn 6.

With under three minutes to go, David Malukas jumped his Dale Coyne Racing w/HMD Honda into sixth, after annoying both Josef Newgarden and Scott Dixon by slowing down.

Newgarden finished the session in 10th, but his teammates Scott McLaughlin and Will Power were 16th and 17th, although they were ahead of Dixon.

IndyCar debutant Juri Vips finished the session in 15th, 0.8441s off his pace-setting teammate Lundgaard and 0.01s ahead of Rahal. Blomqvist was focused on clocking laps – 35 – and finished around 0.75s behind MSR teammate Helio Castroneves.

RESULTS