After struggling to find competitive pace during the 2023 Indianapolis 500, Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing has made a host of changes to rectify the situation leading into this upcoming IndyCar season.
The team’s poor performance during the Month of May was embarrassing for the tenured squad, and led to Graham Rahal being the only driver to be bumped out of the race during qualifying.
The veteran was able to fill in for an injured Stef Wilson to compete in his 16th Indy 500, but did so with the Dreyer and Reinbold team rather than his own.
Speaking to media at a pre-season conference, Rahal described how his dad and team owner Bobby Rahal stepped in to make a multitude of changes in order to ensure improvements were made quickly.
“There was a lot of low-hanging fruit, unfortunately, that was missed,” explained Rahal, the memory of that tough race still evident in his demeanor. “That’s part of the game. But it’s disappointing now to look back.
“Having said that, I’ve got to tip my cap to my dad, which everybody thinks, ‘Oh, you should do that.’ No, he was very motivated after May to get responses. Immediate responses.
“And then from that, [Chief Operating Officer] Steve Eriksen has done an amazing job to put the plan together, and now to let [Technical Director] Stefano Sordo and his group implement the plan.
“They have invested a lot of money. We’ve got sponsors that have jumped on board to help us with some of the R&D costs, and it’s going to make a big difference.
“A lot of changes at our team. A lot of new engineering changes and new people to the sport, period.
“Is it one thing? No. But we have already identified, I think, a lot of things that were not right that has hurt our team and kind of made us fall behind here. Just got to keep our heads down and now implement those properly, make sure the changes that are being done are being done to every car, being done well, and hopefully we’ll see some good performance gains this year.
“[That Indy 500 is] behind us now, and I think we’ve found a lot that’s going to help us as we go forward, and we’re going to continue to work very hard in that regard.”
Some of the changes Rahal described were implemented during the 2023 season, which led to the team earning a win in Toronto and nearly scoring a second on the IMS road course in the latter portion of the year.
The entire team is hopeful the large-scale changes will lead to stronger performances at the 108th Indianapolis 500 as well as the rest of the upcoming 17-race season.
