Graham Rahal started in second place for Saturday’s Sonsio Grand Prix from Indianapolis, but led the way out of Turn 1.
He continued in the lead for half of the race, but the decision to take on used alternate tires in the third stint proved to be a defining moment.
After a few laps, Rahal’s used tired began to lose traction and before long he had been overrun by the eventual winner Alex Palou.
There was no guarantee that Rahal would have been able to keep the reigning champion at bay even with a matching strategy, but having his weakest tire fit late in the race when he had no chance to recover was not helpful.
Palou described after the race how he could see that the tires on the #15 RLL Honda ahead of him were falling off by the way the car was struggling under acceleration.
“So, yeah, from there I was, like, ’Okay, let’s be patient and hopefully we can have good pace to follow him and maybe overtake him on pit strategy.’
“But he had the great pace the first couple of runs. We were battling on our second stint, but I couldn’t really overtake him. Yeah, it was great at the end when I got to pass him.
“I think he was struggling a little bit with the used soft tires. We were on good primaries, so yeah, it was great.
“Yeah, it’s easy for us to spot, especially here [at IMS]. You can see in Turn 14 whenever you leave a mark, and that means the car is sliding. Also, out of Turn 4, and he was doing it for two or three laps. Yeah, I knew we were in a good spot.”
Still proud
Even with Rahal’s late fall, he still led 49 laps and claimed the two extra bonus points that come from leading the most laps.
And to the team’s credit, most on pit lane did not know quite how problematic the used alternate tires would be during race conditions.
The last time Rahal stood on a podium was at this same track in August of 2023, and he seems to still have most of what’s needed to succeed at the track.
The 18-year-veteran made a social media post detailing his disappointment, but still made a point to relate how proud the team was to have qualified three cars in the first three rows.
“This one hurts but we have many things to be proud of coming out of this weekend,” said Rahal’s post. “Some things to learn and get right for the future but overall, a positive weekend for the team. Now it’s time to turn it up and get ready for the big show.”
Rahal’s two team-mates Louis Foster and Devlin DeFrancesco finished 1th and 17th respectively.
The RLL team now looks ahead to the Indianapolis 500, which has been a particular pain point for the team in recent years.
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