By David Morgan, Associate Editor
INDIANAPOLIS – For Graham Rahal at the Indianapolis 500, when it rains, it pours.
After having to once again deal with the stress of making the 33-car field last weekend, the No. 15 Rahal Letterman Lanigan team was looking forward to Sunday’s 109th running of the Indianapolis 500, but in Friday’s Carb Day final practice, they ran into yet another setback.
Less than 40 minutes into the two-hour session, smoke could be seem pouring out of Rahal’s Honda as he limped his way to pit road for a diagnosis – which turned out to be terminal, bringing the team’s day to an early end.
Not the day the team was looking for as they will have their work cut out for themselves on Sunday starting from 28th place.
“We had a mechanical failure, unfortunately,” said Rahal. “Just how this month’s gone, it seems like we’re always behind. Things keep happening and this is yet another one. We’re done for today, unfortunately.
“That was my first new set of tires that I’ve had and I was just trying to get in the pack, but I could tell the car just wouldn’t stay in the pack, just kept getting slower and slower and slower. Finally out of [Turn] 1, I felt it grind pretty good and that was that.
“It’s just disappointing for our team, for United Rentals. It just feels like we can’t get caught up here.
“The car was better today, a lot better today, which is a positive. The wind is wreaking havoc today with the cross wind in [Turn] 3 in particular, but the car felt really good in [Turn] 2, which is key for the race. I just wish we could get more time.”
With no other track time before Sunday, Rahal and his team will have to go into Sunday blind, hoping whatever fixes and changes they make to the car are the right ones.
“Now, it is what it is. At this stage, you’ve just got to go. If it’s not ideal, it’s not ideal. It doesn’t really matter now. We’ll do what we can.”
Before Friday’s practice, Rahal was optimistic they would be able to find what they needed for the race, having spend days upon days pouring over the data trying to find something to help them out.
“My car has been kind of numb all month,” Rahal said. “Dev will tell you, I’ve tried so much this month on my car. I’ve been all over. I’ve never, ever, ever put this much into it. That’s what’s been frustrating about all of it. Normally people think the RLL cars come, they’re not fast. It’s got plenty of speed. That’s not the issue.
“We need to keep working on it. Taku and I, I know yesterday, our engineers were together, Eddie and Yves, Todd, meeting for a long time meeting about setups, looking back at previous setups that Taku and Indy have had here, which we study anyway. But looking for anything that may stand out that will help both of us.
“I think he’s really in the same boat as me. We’ve got to be a lot better. Clearly it’s going to be easier to start on the front row than on the 10th. But again, as I said before, 500 miles is a long time. We’ve got to get our cars right to make sure we can stay there. If we do that, we’ll be just fine.
“Last year we have experience, sadly, starting towards the back, but some of my best races here ever were starting there, and some of my worst races were starting up front, row 2, row 4, those two didn’t end well.
“We’ll see what Sunday brings.”
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