Graham Rahal claimed his second podium of the 2026 IndyCar season with a P3 finish at the Indy GP, following a chaotic afternoon at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS) road course.
After lining up seventh in qualifying, the Rahal Letterman Lanigan driver navigated a muddled afternoon to secure another strong result in an increasingly consistent campaign.
Graham Rahal praises former RLL teammate Lundgaard at the 2026 IndyCar Indy GP
The No. 15 Fifth Third Bank Honda driver rounded out his 35th career podium at the IMS road course, a track he believes “just works” for him and his team.
“It definitely works for us as a team and for me. You know, I think just a great day. Obviously trying to chase this guy [David Malukas] down,” Rahal shared at the post-race press conference.
Rahal praised his former teammate Christian Lundgaard for his maiden win of the season, noting that any chance of tackling him for the win seemed nearly impossible given how quick he was.
“But I mean, I could tell right away I didn’t quite have the pace for Christian. He was just very fast.”
Rahal credits No.15 team for making “great calls” throughout Sunday’s race despite issues
Throughout the weekend, Rahal had an exciting start to his trip to the IMS. After showing stellar pace throughout the first practice session, where he finished second, the team believed they had the ability to fight at the front.
However, following limited track time due to a clutch failure and a rain-impacted qualifying session, the veteran driver was forced to pick up the pieces from seventh. Taking these factors into account, Rahal recalled that he remained competitive throughout the opening stints of Sunday’s race before tyre degradation impacted his performance.
“I was good at the start of stints actually. I could really close the gap there, but later in the stints the rear would go off. We’ve just got a little work to do. I think missing practice, half of it at least, kind of put us on our back foot with the rear grip and never quite got there.”
Rahal thoroughly credited his team at RLL for making “great calls” throughout the duration of the race that enabled him to fight for the podium and hopefully progress through the ranks during the critical Month of May.
“I thought we put a great race together, great strategy, great calls by Brian, Eve, and the entire group, and great stops.
“We’ll take it. We’ll march on in the rest of May. Good start to the year for the 15 crew and great result for Louis as well in P7. Hopefully we can keep this going.”
Rahal shares verdict on the hybrid system after Rossi’s DNF at the 2026 IndyCar Indy GP
During the course of the race, Ed Carpenter Racing driver Alexander Rossi fell victim to the issues pertaining to the hybrid system.
Rossi’s car gave up on the front straight, and despite the need for a yellow flag, the race went on under the premise of a local caution that forced the ECR driver to climb out of his car unsupported, all while his peers swerved past him at 170 mph.
When asked about earlier frustrations regarding the hybrid system following the Long Beach weekend and Rossi’s race-ending issue during the Indy GP, Rahal admitted he couldn’t quite understand what happened on Rossi’s end, but he managed to highlight the physical intensity that these hybrid systems have brought forth.
“It’s a lot of work. As physical as it is now, I mean, these guys, everybody is hustling. It’s 85 laps of qualifying pretty much. It’s not like it used to be, for sure.”
Rahal explained that the balance of the race changed constantly as drivers attempted to manage tyres while remaining aggressive across long green-flag runs. But the key lies in tyre management, which is the simplest, albeit crucial, aspect of lasting for longer stints.
“I thought overall today was good, though. Kind of came and went. There were times you felt like a hero, and times you were just hanging on for dear life.
“That’s kind of what you want. I thought the tire was really good today. If you took care of it, it still degraded but lasted long enough that you could kind of make it work.”
Reliability concerns for the No.15 team throughout the Indy GP weekend
After showing promising pace across the opening stages of the Grand Prix weekend, the RLL crew encountered an unexpected setback. Recounting the moment where the No.15 driver suffered a clutch failure during practice, he labelled the moment as “concerning”.
Rahal later admitted the problem was not isolated to his car alone, raising concerns about reliability as IndyCar heads deeper into the demanding Month of May schedule, where teams must balance performance, durability, and preparation ahead of the Indianapolis 500.
“Overall this weekend we had a clutch failure, which I thought was very, very strange yesterday. I’m glad to get through the race not having that problem. I know there was several of them around, and I’m a little concerned about what’s causing that, but we’ll soldier on through the rest of May.”
Rahal on how Palou’s error helped capitalise on a key moment in the race
The caution period triggered by Rossi’s stoppage became one of the key turning points of the race, particularly for championship leader Álex Palou.
While several front-runners immediately reacted by diving into the pit lane as the yellow flag developed, Palou stayed out one lap longer — an unusually costly delay for a driver and team known for rarely making mistakes.
The timing shuffle temporarily dropped Palou down the order before he recovered strongly through the field to finish fifth. Rahal acknowledged that the Ganassi driver likely had the pace to finish further ahead had the caution sequence unfolded differently.
“To be honest with you, the yellow that really helped us that hurt Palou — I think Palou had as good of a chance of a heads-up as we did. He was ahead of us. We [the top 3 finishers] all took it. He didn’t.
“We took when we saw it, and he didn’t, which is rare. Those guys don’t make mistakes, but you know, if you see a car in a precarious position, you do have to take it.
“Like in the end, outside of Palou, did a great job obviously to come back up to fifth. The three fastest cars on track were the three that finished in the top three today. I mean, Palou would probably have been ahead of us, to be very frank. We still battled it out. It wasn’t necessarily that we got super lucky, I don’t think.”
Tyre degradation concerns prevented Rahal from earning second place
Despite still having push-to-pass remaining during the closing laps, Graham Rahal admitted tyre degradation ultimately prevented him from posing a realistic late challenge for David Malukas, who was ahead of him.
“I was catching him three or four-tenths of a lap. I just burnt the rears. I was dying at the end and trying to hang on and not make any mistakes. Started to lock inside fronts a little bit.”
After spending portions of the final stint closing the gap by several tenths per lap, the RLL driver explained that his rear tyres began falling away with only a handful of laps remaining, forcing him to manage his aggression simply by keeping it clean.
“Obviously you can burn it. I’m always aware of the long view of these engines and stuff, try to take care of the engine. If you don’t have to beat it up, don’t beat it up. For me in the instance there was no — I wasn’t catching him enough, unfortunately.”
The driver shared that he held out hope for Malukas to make some kind of error that’d help him get by, but with four laps remaining, he realised that the pace wasn’t enough for second.
“I really needed him to make a mistake, which he didn’t do. It was only, like, what, ten seconds left [of P2P] or something, but I tried to use as much as I could.”
Despite finishing third, Rahal got to share the podium with his former teammate Christian Lundgaard, whom he labelled as a “great racer”. Rahal showed an honest appreciation for Lundgaard excelling in both consistency and being fast on track.
