Hometown Hero Rahal Fastest in Morning Warmup

By Christopher DeHarde, IndyCar & Road to Indy Writer

LEXINGTON, Ohio — Graham Rahal was fastest in the Sunday morning warmup for the Verizon IndyCar Series’s Honda Indy 200 Sunday afternoon.

Rahal turned a fastest lap of 1:05.0239 on his 16th lap out of 23 turned. His No. 15 Rahal/Letterman/Lanigan Racing Honda will start the race in fourth place.

Team Penske driver Helio Castroneves would be second fastest, .2768 seconds behind Rahal’s time. He will start fifth.

Andretti Autosport occupies the rest of the top five with Marco Andretti ahead of Takuma Sato and Ryan Hunter-Reay. The trio will start 14th, 3rd and 10th.

The front row for the race had mixed fortunes as Will Power could only manage the 16th fastest lap in morning warmup while Josef Newgarden was seventh in the session.

The most laps were turned by Scott Dixon (ninth fastest), Simon Pagenaud (12th) and Max Chilton (18th) with 24 laps each.

Perhaps the biggest winner in morning warmup was Conor Daly. The AJ Foyt Racing driver was sixth fastest and will start 11th. His fastest lap was .5537 seconds slower than Rahal’s.

The biggest loser in the Sunday morning warmup session was Spencer Pigot. The Ed Carpenter Racing driver was sixth fastest at one point in the session but clipped too much curbing on the exit of Turn 13, nosing his car into the tire barrier heading to the front straightaway. He would finish the session with five laps completed and will start 16th.

The race starts at 3:45 ET.