Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Look to Atone for 2023 at Indy
Photo Credit: Paul Hurley, Penske Entertainment
“It was ugly. I mean, quite frankly it was embarrassing.”
One year later, that’s the recollection of Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing co-owner Mike Lanigan on the team’s qualifying performance for last year’s Indianapolis 500 when drivers Christian Lundgaard, Katherine Legge qualified at the back of the grid and Graham Rahal was bumped from the field by teammate Jack Harvey.
“How were those two days? It was hell. It was hell. Like Mike said, it was embarrassing. God, it was just awful,” recalled co-owner Bobby Rahal. “I said at the time, this is going to kill me if I do this again. It's embarrassing I think may be the best -- here we won the race two years prior, now you don't qualify? It's like, come on.
Two days later, Rahal took action.
“That's when I just said to Steve Eriksen (RLL chief operating officer), who I had brought in about six months prior to the race last year, who has done a really good job for us, I said, Steve, in 30 days I want a plan how we're going to turn this ship around and get it back to where it should be at Indianapolis. That’s when it started. 30 days later I had the plan or I had the basis of the plan, and Mike had it, as well, and said, okay, let's go.
“It was a big investment for Mike and I, but we're not here just to be here. We're here to win.
“Yeah, it was hell. I certainly don't want to go through that again.”
Photo Credit: James Black, Penske Entertainment
But according to Graham Rahal, it was a hell the team needed to go through.
“The best thing to happen to the team was the worst thing to happen to the team, which was me not qualifying. I said before, I'll say it again, that I think me not qualifying was the best thing that could have happened versus anybody else because it clearly rings home for my dad and everybody else. Not saying it doesn't matter for any of the others, but it got serious in a hurry, and that made us really lock in and focus on fixing a lot of items, particularly when it came to Indy.
“I'll just say, these are -- our struggles of last year are things that I had said to the team for years. It wasn't that we all of a sudden were slow. We were getting slow. Like we were falling behind for the years prior, but it's a struggle when in the years prior you had won Indy and you had finished -- well, 2021 was looking extremely good on our car. Certainly we were in the catbird seat. I think anybody could say that. We needed one more pit stop, everybody else needed two. It's a pretty simple math equation that we were looking good in 2021.
“So when you have that sort of results, like oh, no, you guys are fine. Well, the reality was we were never that fast. In 2020 we didn't qualify in a superspeedway trim like in an ordinary year you would have. 2021, we were pretty average, frankly, and in the race we kind of moved our way forward through strategy, et cetera.
“Last year not qualifying was a real shot to like, hey, we are really far behind and we need to get serious about this in a hurry. It allowed the owners to dig in because I don't think many of the issues were issues that they were frankly that aware of. I mean, they know what our budgets are, they know what we spend, and we spend everything we could. Anything that was requested was always done.
“But the realities were the things that we were spending on weren't the right things. I don't know that they had the awareness of that fully, and I think last year brought a severe intensity and focus to what was going on and brought the change that was necessary.”
Photo Credit: Joe Skibinski, Penske Entertainment
Lanigan agreed and admitted the team had fallen behind.
“Both Bob and I and Dave (Letterman) totally agreed that we may have gotten a little lackadaisical on the engineering side, quite frankly.
“In 2020 we were extremely competitive. Takuma (Sato) won the race. Graham was in third. I think we got caught sleeping, frankly. Very depressing over the winter. Bob and I totally committed to the resources required to -- for this not to happen again, and quite frankly, the sting will not go away until one of these guys are on the podium a week from Sunday.
“But we are excited about where we're at with the cars right now. Are we there yet? I don't know if we're there yet, but we're certainly going to be extremely competitive versus last year.”
With engineering and personnel changes made, Christian Lundgaard scored his first career NTT INDYCAR SERIES victory on the streets of Toronto in July to help the team turn the page from its Indy low point according to the elder Rahal.
“Yeah, it was fantastic. Of course we've been strong at -- I'm trying to think of the race prior to. Grand Prix we had been strong at. Even after this race, the 500, we made changes, and I think we immediately saw the benefit of that, and the performance on the street course, of course Christian winning, huge for him, huge for us, for our sponsor, HyVee, huge.
“That just eased a lot of pain. It erases a lot of that, having a great race like that.
“Obviously after that we were very strong on the road courses. So yeah, that was a big day for all of us for sure.
“As far as this year, I think we've come here much better prepared,” Rahal continued. “Of course that's easy to say in hindsight. You think you're prepared last year, but obviously we weren’t.
“A lot of the actions that we took following the race not only have continued for the whole year since then but will continue in the years to come. In other words, this isn't a one-shot commitment or one-shot deal to improve the competition of the team as a whole.
“We've really strengthened the engineering area, and I think that's already producing results and will continue to produce results. I think that's maybe a difference.”
Photo Credit: James Black, Penske Entertainment
Coming off of last year’s experience at the speedway, the younger Rahal has a newfound appreciation for just making the race, much less being a contender for the win.
“Yeah, there's no doubt about it. I said it last year. Indy is not a place that's given, it's earned. You go through that roller coaster of emotions, and the ups, the downs, the highs, the lows, that's racing in general but Indy magnifies all of that.
“But it is a place that will test every bit of you. As tough as it was, I fully believe that you should have to qualify for the Indy 500. Just that should be a standard thing.
“This year we're going to have to go out there and try again.
“After last year, the first voicemail when I got back to my phone, literally the first phone call and voicemail I had was from Al Unser, Jr. It meant the world to me -- in fact, if I pulled up my phone right now, it's one of the few voicemails that I have not deleted for the last year because he's a guy who's experienced this. He's been at the highs. He's been at the lows. That's what makes you in the end.
“For me, this is a year that I need to -- we as a team need to respond as well as possible and have a good month of May, and I fully expect that we will.”
The first day of PPG Presents Armed Forces Qualifying takes place from 11 a.m.-5:50 p.m. Saturday. A practice session will precede qualifying from 8:30-9:30 a.m., with two 30-minute groups.
Positions 13-30 in the starting field will be set Saturday, with the Last Row Shootout, Top 12 and Firestone Fast Six qualifying sessions Sunday afternoon deciding the rest of the 33-car starting grid.