By David Morgan, Associate Editor
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Graham Rahal is ready to take the fight to his competitors in Sunday’s running of the Children’s of Alabama Indy Grand Prix at Barber Motorsports Park.
Rahal equaled his best qualifying effort of the season with a third-place run in Saturday’s time trials around the 17-turn, 2.3-mile road course as he aims to bring home a season best finish in his No. 15 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Honda.
“P3 in qualifying, great day for everyone on the Fifth Third Bank No. 15. The boys did a wonderful job,” said Rahal. “Everybody that puts a lot into this, it obviously great to have a result like this to be able to start up towards the front.”
“Obviously tomorrow is the day. It’s the most important thing, but starting where we start is going to make our lives a heck of a lot easier. We’ll see what tomorrow brings, but the one thing I will say is that I feel like our car is extremely consistent. It’s really good to drive right now here. It’s really stable. It’s all the things you want for a race car, so I’ll take it and we’ll see what tomorrow brings.”
Rahal expressed his relief at being able to make it through to the Firestone Fast Six at all, being hard on himself for how he drove in the Fast 12, timing in fifth out of six cars to advance and run for the pole.
“I felt like we were in the hunt. I was glad to make it through because I didn’t drive very good in Q2 to be honest. I felt like I gave away a tenth or two, so to squeak in was good,” Rahal lamented.
“For Fifth Third Bank, for Honda, for all of our partners to just, I don’t know, have a good result…we know we can race well here, so qualifying is going to help a lot.”
Rahal added that Sunday’s race will be a dogfight among the top contenders and hoped that Saturday’s qualifying run will lead them to another strong Barber finish.
He and series points leader Kyle Kirkwood will have an extra set of new Firestone alternates to use in the race on Sunday after using scuffed alternates in qualifying, which could be advantage Rahal.
“The grip this weekend, whatever the tire Firestone brought, whatever it is, is faster than hell. It’s been a lot of fun. It’s physical. [Sunday] is going to be a bruiser and hopefully we can take the battle to them,” said Rahal.
“Obviously with Alex [Palou], I don’t know, we’re all wondering the same thing, but hopefully we can take it to them. We’ve had a chance to win here before, so hopefully we can make it happen, have good tire deg and tire life.
“We’ve got better tires than they do, for sure, so we’ll see.”
In 15 starts at Barber, Rahal has scored six top-10 finishes, along with two podium finishes (2015, 2016). His last top-10 at the track came in 2022.
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