With three road/street course podium finishes, it’s no secret that Graham Rahal is entering this weekend with confidence on his side. That confidence offers Rahal not only a boost for himself, but a boost for the entire Rahal Letterman Lanigan race team.
“Being as busy as this run of races has been, to have something to keep them positive and excited about is really good,” Rahal commented. “We have a lot more road/street course races to go so we got to try and keep up the formula that we’ve had going for the rest of the season. Just cause we’ve been there before doesn’t mean it’s going to continue to happen from here on out. So try to improve as much as we can and try to take the fight to the Penskes.”
Keeping the consistency going won’t be easy, as the Honda Indy Toronto has proved to be challenging in the past. Rahal has ran showed speed and posted strong finishes in the past in Toronto, but has also found himself at the bottom end of the finishing order in the other seasons. Being a tough track as a whole, Rahal says there’s no margin for error due to the concrete barriers being pretty darn close.
“Particularly, I would say that turn one is bumpy but the whole last section – which is basically from the hairpin at the end of the straightaway all the way to the front straight – is difficult as well,” he added.
Rahal added that the challenges are what make it fun as it “separates the men from the boys come race-day a little bit”. Part of the challenge with a tough circuit, though is keeping the equipment together throughout the race, but also being aggressive enough to be in contention at the end. Rahal admits that it’s a hard balance, but it deals with evaluating each situation that you’re dealt on a individual basis.
“I try to always take chances that I feel like I can win at, if that makes sense, versus taking chances that are more risky,” he explained. “So even if I feel like there’s an opportunity that they may be contact if I dive inside of someone, you try and put yourself in a position where it’s a good move and something that won’t take you out. Perhaps before in my career, and with others, just take more chances to try and get themselves in a better position without thinking of the long-term play of it. For me, now, we need to make it to the end.”
The past two seasons when the Verizon IndyCar Series has headed to the city of Toronto, the challenge of the track would be doubleded with a pair of races. However, due to scheduling the Pan-Am Games, the weekend has been shortened back to a single event this weekend. Rahal commented that while the double-race format can be great for the fans in “getting the bang for the buck”, it makes it a tough weekend on the crew guys in making sure the car is prepared. He cited two weeks ago in Detroit, where they were not only faced with a double-header, but a wet forecast across the weekend.
“Detroit was the longest weekend of everybody’s lives, I think, with the constant rain,” he stated. “That’s the worst case so unfortunately when you get put in that position, the last thing you want to do is two races.”
Rahal added that for him, if they want to do two-races, he liked the format that was used last year when the first race in Toronto got postponed to the same day as the second race. Last season, Honda Indy Toronto officials ran two races on the Sunday as a result of Saturday’s rain-out, but with each race being a shorter distance than the normal 85 laps.
“I thought it could work well, versus doing it over two days,” he commented. “The thing is we don’t get a lot of practice time anyways, and when you’re trying to throw two qualifying session, and practice, it really beats everybody up. Who knows where it could go in the future. Obviously with everything going on in the city, this year it’d be difficult, but I didn’t mind the two-race format.”
Currently sitting fifth in points, Rahal looks to be en route to have his best season in the series to date, with regards to final points position.
“It’s been a really good year,” he said. “I’ve been pretty pleased with the performance of the team and how things have gone. Obviously we’re halfway through here so we still have a lot of work to be done. So far, so good.”
Rahal had some strong runs last year, highlighted by a podium in Detroit, but found himself in the deep end of the points standings at season’s end. One of the changes made before the season was the removal of his father Bobby Rahal from the pit box, which was a move made by the team as part of their approach to the season.
“One of our keys this year was to keep our emotions aside,” Rahal commented. “I can get pretty fired up in the car at times, and when I would get fired up, he was just firing back at me on the pit stand and it didn’t work out a few times. So we decided this would be the best way forward.”
Rahal added on Thursday in Toronto that one of the most frustrating things while working with his dad would be when Bobby would ask him to drive harder and pass the driver up ahead.
“Its like ‘Are you freaking kidding me? I’m not cruising around; I’m trying to pass him’,” Rahal continued. “Those are the certain things that get you ticked off when you’re trying extremely hard, but you can’t make any headway. Of course, they come on the radio and say you need to try harder. We haven’t had that this year and fortunately, we’ve had some good runs and things so far.”
Though while most have assumed Rahal’s success this year has been simply based on that one aspect, he says that’s not the case, but rather the work by the entire team as a whole.
“The real factor to our success this year is the engineers and the guys behind the scenes, because those are the guys that really make this possible, particularly right now,” he commented. “Everybody is pretty worn out coming up here because it’s a long string of 10 or 11 weeks. Our guys are all sleep walking by this point. These guys have all done a real good job this year, and have really made the team turn around.”
If the pieces fall together over the course of the event, Rahal could possibly take the No. 15 Honda to victory lane, which would make a dream debut for new primary sponsor Rousseau Metal. While the Quebec-based company has been a long-time partner of RLL, this is the first race that they will be the primary sponsor for.
“To have them step up is big for us, and great for this team,” Rahal commented. “Obviously, we’ve been through the ringer with sponsorship this year, Steak ‘n’ Shake carrying the primary most races. This was an empty one so it’s great to have Rousseau on board.”
