Graham Rahal believes a continued streak of bad luck has played a major role in his poor form in recent years.
Rahal is one of IndyCar’s most tenured drivers, and will be competing in his 19th season when the series returns to action on the streets of St. Petersburg in March.
Despite having nearly 300 starts to his name the veteran has only notched six wins in that time, with his most recent coming in 2015.
This past year he was not able to log even a single top five finish and ended the season 18th in the points standings, his worst result since 2014.
Rahal has been open over the years about his disappointment in his own results, and spoke to IndyCar.com recently about how a long streak of bad luck has played its part.
“The difference is how luck plays a role,” Rahal said. “In the middle of a baseball inning, you don’t get a yellow flag. That’s just the truth. In racing, some people get all the luck, and some people get none. That’s a real thing.
“You’ve got to not only pitch a perfect game in racing, but you’ve got to also have Lady Luck on your side in every regard, and it’s not an easy thing to have. I can’t say I’ve had any luck since 2015.
“Maybe it’ll turn back around and be favorable, but even this past year for me, there’s been races where we were very competitive. Sometimes you do everything flawless, and it simply doesn’t go your way. That’s becoming increasingly hard.”
Indianapolis 500 woes in recent years
The biggest struggles for Rahal in recent years have come at the Indianapolis 500. He was unceremoniously bumped from the 2023 Indy 500 when he was unable to get his Rahal Letterman Lanigan entry to perform better than any other cars on bump day.
Rahal was able to compete in the race when he was asked to fill in for an injured Stefan Wilson, but the sting of being bumped out of the race remains even still.
The team doubled their efforts for the iconic race this past year, but still barely qualified and all four cars finished outside the top 10.
If Rahal can find a bit of luck, however, he feels that he still has the ability to overcome what has grown into a 126-race winless streak.
“I genuinely feel like on Sundays, I’m one of the best drivers out here,” continued Rahal. “I really feel like when it comes to race day, there are not many drivers that can put a whole race together like I can.
“Unfortunately, we’ve had a lot of near-misses, and that’s a major frustration when it continuously bounces the wrong direction.”
