It was a stunning return to the IndyCar podium positions for Graham Rahal on Sunday at Barber Motorsports Park. The 37-year-old finished in the top 3 for the first time since 2023, ending an almost three-year podium drought.
The result marks a turning point for Rahal and the RLL team, showing that persistence pays off.
A long awaited return
The waving of the chequered flag at Barber Motorsports Park saw Graham Rahal finish deservedly on the rostrum. The No. 15 driver netted his first podium of the 2026 NTT IndyCar season following intense battles with Arrow McLaren’s Christian Lundgaard and Team Penske’s David Malukas in the closing laps of the race.
Following the podium ceremony, Rahal spoke about what it felt like to finally stand on the podium once again and what it meant to him and his team.
“It’s a great reward for the guys and gals. Everybody has worked so hard to be back here. Heard all the noise and BS that we get to hear all the time.
“No, I mean, I’m super happy for everybody on the 15. Great pit stops, great strategy with Bryan. We’ll carry this momentum into the break here a little bit and get ready for Long Beach.
“It’s a good relief this early in the year to have a good result. Now our job is to go analyse and figure out why. What changes did we make to put our car so much further into the window than most other road course races and how can we take that to the GP and Indy in particular?”
From pressure to podium
Following the final pit stop cycle at Barber, Graham Rahal sat in second with the race rapidly coming to a close thanks to Christian Lundgaard’s slow stop; he passed him as car #7 had cold tyres. The pressure was on the Ohio native to maintain P2 from there, with the Dane piling the pressure on.
Eventually, Lundgaard would pass Rahal for the second step of the podium with three laps to go. When asked following the race if that overtake shook his confidence in a podium finish at Barber, Rahal replied: “I don’t think it did.
“A couple laps in a row I kind of nailed turn two as best I could. He was still quicker. But he was still close. I knew it was going to take everything.I went through 13, I know that’s six corners variation, but I went through 13, had a big moment. That allowed him to close up just a hair closer into 14, 15, 16 than he had been prior. That gave him a little bit of momentum going down the front.
“I didn’t block that hard. People may say, Why? I still wanted the podium. I didn’t want us both to go sailing often doing something stupid.
“Trust me, I wanted the podium today badly. I really wanted to be P2. I wanted the podium badly to go into this break. A little pressure off the guys. Spirit’s really for the team. We can go off to Long Beach, it will be great. Indy GP, we should be very strong.”
A lesson learned in strategy
Tyre strategy plays a part in every IndyCar race, but at Barber, the script was flipped. Contrary to what most of the grid thought about tyres heading into the race, the black-walled primary tyre ended up being the better call.
During IndyCar qualifying, some drivers choose to save a set of reds for the race, thinking that fresher, softer rubber would work to their advantage.
Graham Rahal was one of those drivers, though he said after the race that it may not have been the right call in hindsight. He ended up doing two stints on the softer tyre.
“I’m not sure that it hurt us that much or gained us that much by keeping that extra new set of reds. Always in the race, it’s nice to have fresh rubber. Our thinking was it was a red race, we were going to be in the catbird seat. Some guys only ran one red.
“I’ll be honest, I screwed up because I thought the rule — I’ll be honest, like I thought that the rule was that you had to run two alts today, but that’s only a street course thing.
“That was the other thing, is that if I was going to run two primes for sure everyone was. I knew having two new ones was going to be a benefit. We’ll live and we’ll learn. We’ll be all right.”
