Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing’s Christian Lundgaard, driver of the No.45 Hy-Vee Honda says that it was a pretty solid day for him and the team as he ended Friday’s opening day of action at The Thermal Club in California in second place with a fastest time of 01:39.6974s and speaking following the action he said:
It was a pretty solid day for the Hy-Vee Honda. We were up there (on the timesheets) all day. We were P2 this morning and P5 this afternoon and are a little more “tire rich” than anybody else which is a positive. We only used two sets (of the seven test sets) today and I think the majority have used either three or four so we’re looking pretty gpod. The car seems to respond which is always nice but obviously you need to nail it on the lap that you have going because the tire degradation is super high here so for us to be that competitive on such limited tire usage is good I think so I’m pretty stoked for tomorrow and the rest of the weekend. I think there is a good chance for us for the $1 Million Challenge on Sunday, so we keep digging.”
Graham Rahal in the No.15 Code 3 Associates Honda was 22nd fastest with a time of 1:40.9549s and speaking following his day of track action, Rahal said:
“Today was a carry over from our Barber test, which is frustrating. I can’t seemingly get the car to work, and activate the tire and do the things that I need it to do. I’m disappointed because I feel like I’m going to extreme measures now to try to get the car to respond. What’s frustrating is how similar Christian and my cars are and our feedback is so polar opposite and I literally can’t figure out why. It shouldn’t be that way. Our losses to Christian are in two corners and they are two corners that I can’t get the front tire to activate. In one corner he’s able to hold 40+ percent throttle through the whole corner and I’m having to do full lifts and still missing the apex due to understeer. We’ve just got to keep working.”
Pietro Fittipaldi in the No.30 MiJack Honda was 23rd fastest with a time of 01:41.0314s and speaking following the action he commented saying:
It was a great day here at Thermal, learning the track. We progressed a lot from the first session to the second. Every time I get in the car, I feel more confident. It’s a great track, I really enjoy it. We had a small mechanical failure which prevented us from running at the end but it’s good that we’ll have an extra set of tires for tomorrow. The guys are doing a great job so we’ll just keep chipping away at it.”