Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing’s Graham Rahal in the No.15 Hendrickson Honda enters this weekend’s Children’s Grand Prix of Alabama at Barber Motorsports Park, aiming for a strong race. Rahal has won two road course events since INDYCAR’s last trip to Barber having won the Indy Grand Prix on the IMS road course and at the race in Portland.
Looking ahead to this weekend, Rahal said:
We found some decent things at the test to make the car better. For me it was more about pounding laps and working on braking and some of the other items on our test list, including working on improvements with the shocks. I think the other guys (teammates) had a more condensed schedule and were able to attack a little hard on qualifying pace, but we had a good day and I’m looking forward to going back. Barber is an amazing place and last year’s results were not the ones we had hoped for. This time around hopefully we can get the right strategy and make the right moves to put ourselves in a good spot there. I hope some of the knowledge to got us two road course poles at the end of last season translates over. We were decent at the test, but I wouldn’t say we were as fast as some of the other guys so we’re working to close that gap. It’s a race that a lot of the drivers enjoy going to, it’s a race that’s extremely exciting with a lot of passing and where a lot of craziness happens. We’re excited to drive the Hendrickson Honda for the first time and hopefully put in a strong result.
Pietro Fittipaldi will make his first INDYCAR SERIES Barber Motorsports Park start this weekend in the No.30 MiJack Honda and looking ahead to the race this weekend, he said:
“It was great to test at Barber. It was obviously my first time there and I was able to get up to speed and familiarize myself with it, which is super important to me. It was a nice head start on race weekend; the mileage was crucial. The track was amazing. It’s like a roller coaster and I’m excited for the race.”
Christian Lundgaard in the No.45 Hy-Vee Honda heads into this weekend’s race having had a great race here last year after finishing the 2023 event in sixth place; speaking ahead of the year’s event, he said:
“The Barber test was mostly good. We were competitive early on in the day. I think we started where we left off in 2023, which was a big step forward. Unfortunately, I didn’t help our running by having an incident but we repaired the car and got back on track before the end of the day and the pace increased straightaway in the one run I had at the end so I think there is a lot of optimism going into Barber. That was the big step that we made last year. We know our road course car is fast, we know Long Beach is a place we made a big improvement, so I don’t see a reason why we won’t have that at Barber as well. We just need to put it all together.”