Photo Credit: Ashley McCubbin
Graham Rahal, driver of the No. 15 United Rental Honda for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing scored his first top-five of the season by finishing the race in fifth-place. This is a huge bounce back from the opening race in St. Petersburg where Rahal was involved in a big pile up towards the end of the race finishing sixteenth.
Rahal came into the weekend at Phoenix International Raceway with an announcement of a new sponsor for the race, wanting to perform well for them. Unfortunately, Rahal didn’t qualify well and started the race 19th. However once the green flag dropped, he knew he what he had to do to get a good result and he did just that. With no tire issues and his crew having decent pit stops, he was able to gain track position which was key as passing was hard during the race especially in lapped traffic.
“I knew I had to make up a bunch of spots in the first few laps and I got a good start and got a couple of positions on the first lap and another when Luca dropped back,” Rahal said. ” I felt decent about that, I was just trying to close the gap. The team was keeping me up to date on where (race leader) Helio was the whole time and I knew he couldn’t get through traffic. The frustrating thing is that I felt like I had the best car out there. I could catch everybody but I just couldn’t pass at all so I started to save fuel. We got two yellows and it helped a lot.
“The pit stops were amazing as always. I said it from the start that I felt confident today because of those guys. Had I not had that crew and those pit stops behind me, I wouldn’t have felt as good about this race going into it. Getting the points we did for fifth place helps us in the standings for sure. We’re going to keep challenging and pushing hard.”
