Graham Rahal, driver of the No.15 Fifth Third Bank Honda says he is proud of the team effort of Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing at the IMS road course on Saturday.
Rahal start the Sonsio Grand Prix of Indianapolis on the IMS road course from second on the grid and took the lead off the start from Alex Palou.
Rahal led a race high of 49 laps and came home in sixth place.
Speaking following the action he said:
I’m genuinely proud of the effort. I don’t think I locked up once, I don’t think I put one wheel wrong, I defended as best I could, but the Ganassi cars are in a league of their own. The grip they have; their ability to follow so close. We tried our best and I’m proud of the effort of the Fifth Third Bank guys. I tried to drive as flawlessly as I could because I knew that was the only way to beat them but unfortunately, we weren’t able to do that today. We’ll keep working hard. We’ve made gains and we will continue to try to close the gap.”
Louis Foster in the No.45 Mijack Honda started the race from a career high third and showed great race pace throughout the day and came home in 11th.
Speaking following the action he said:
It was a good race for us. It’s nice to finally get some decent points on the board. We had definitely had more potential today. Usually, I would say I’m happy with 11th but after qualifying third, it’s definitely more disappointing. We’re going to go back over the race and try to understand the things we need to work on and why we just didn’t have the pace of the other cars. Aside from that, I’m happy to get 11th. It’s a good result for us. I’m looking forward to the rest of May.”
Devlin DeFrancesco in the No.30 Evtec Honda came home in 17th place but felt that they had a great forty laps. Speaking following the action he said:
We had a really good first 40 laps; all the executing and speed was really good and for some reason when I dropped the clutch on the second pit stop the car stalled. We need to look into that. and we had a bit of a slow plug in as well which hurts. We had such a competitive car this weekend and I’m frustrated for myself and for the team because we deserved more than that. We were pressuring Palou in the first stint. They all had to pit early because they were starting to drowned and we were solid. It hurts after being so strong this weekend. Our open test for the Indy 500 was quite good. Our race car was quite solid so we’ll execute the rest of May.”
Takuma Sato, the two-time Indianapolis 500 winner will join the team on Tuesday for the opening day of practice for the Greatest Spectacle In Racing.