Bobby Rahal - “We’re Not There Yet”
Photo by Joe Skibinski, Penske Entertainment
Was Christian Lundgaard’s first career NTT INDYCAR SERIES win Sunday at Toronto proof positive that Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing has returned to winning form, or just a blip on the radar as it tries to recover from its low point at Indianapolis and Detroit?
To hear Lundgaard, the 21-year-old driver from Denmark in his second full season with the team tell it, Sunday’s win at Toronto is just the beginning of the team’s renaissance, with more wins possible before the season’s end.
“We're making progress, and I think it's pretty obvious now that the past two races that we've done, we didn't have any -- well, last year here we did transfer in the first group, but in Mid-Ohio none of our three cars transferred last year, and this year we were at two cars in the Fast Six and one car in the front row.
“So just looking at it like that, we're definitely making progress. The races that are coming up are races that we were competitive at last year, so I do think that we have a chance of at least getting another if not three, two more wins this year.”
While team co-owner Bobby Rahal was pleased at the team’s first series win since Takuma Sato won the Indianapolis 500 in August of 2020, his outlook on the team scoring multiple wins the rest of the season was a bit more tempered than Lundgaard’s.
“When I raced, I never felt confident about anything, and if I won a race, later that night I would say: Okay, that was then. Now what are we going to do next weekend? I always ran scared, frankly, as a driver. I still do as an owner.
“So I don't presume -- I may not be as confident as Christian, but I would tell you -- because he is younger and I'm older, and younger people are always more confident than older people.”
Photo by Chris Owens, Penske Entertainment
But between the improvement the team has shown at Mid-Ohio, and now Toronto, Rahal believes the organization is working well.
“You know, we came out of Indy really very, very disappointed and really kind of -- it would have been hard -- you would have been hard-pressed to believe we actually won the race two years earlier, and now we're on the back row, and one guy didn't make it in the race. At least in our car.
“That kind of shook us to our core I think, but I have to say I think, frankly, the race that maybe had a bigger negative affect was Detroit because we were just -- we were not good at all. That's when we decided to make the changes that we made internally. I think we've seen the results of that change.
“We've had great events since then. There's I think a very good vibe within the team. Of course, today helps that immensely. Nothing like winning; right?”
Rahal admits Sunday’s result at Toronto was emotional for him because of the hell the team and he have been through in the last six weeks, especially with the Iowa Speedway double-header, their sponsor, Hy-Vee’s home race, looming next weekend. He’s proud of the working relationships within the team, whether it’s with Lundgaard and Graham Rahal and Jack Harvey or the engineers, and their response to the disappoint of Indy, or maybe even the bigger disappointment, at Detroit.
“The response to that is due to their commitment to this organization and to themselves, each of them, and together.
“So yeah, I don't want to be pessimistic. I think we have a good chance next weekend to figure in the race. We had a reasonable test out there, but it's like anything. I don't think you can count anything for granted. I think you have to go in there and try to do your best every day and see what happens.”
Photo by James Black, Penske Entertainment
However, the gains the Rahal Letterman Lanigan team have made have not come without hard decisions about personnel.
“Making changes is difficult because it's obviously affecting people's lives, and that's not fun. When everybody says, oh, it must be great to be a president of the company; yeah, it's great until the minute you have to let somebody go, and then you feel like crap, whether they deserved it or not.
“Just things weren't just working. I think that we felt we just had to -- you know what they say about the definition -- what is it the definition of insanity is keep doing the same thing time and time again and expecting a different result. I just felt that we were at that point.
“We needed to give some people some opportunities that they maybe had been wanting for a while and hadn't been given that opportunity. I think that contributed to this turnaround of sorts.
“Just different atmosphere. You know, again, it's no fun making those kind of decisions. I mean, it's no fun at all, but we have to. We're a company. We represent great companies. We have great people within our team, and we have an obligation to those groups, to the people within our team, and to our sponsors. So you have to do what you have to do.
“So, anyway, you have to make changes that you think are right, and thankfully we've had some good results since then, but we've got to keep doing what we're doing. You just can't rest on our laurels. We have to keep pushing.”
“It haunted me. It pained me.”
Rahal says the team’s struggles this season have had a personal effect on him, as well.
“Well, after Indy, the month of May took -- I'm 70 years old, and the month of May took a real toll on me.
“I wasn't sleeping well at night. We're here to win. We're not here to fricking play around or to be part of it. We're here to win.
“I'm telling you, it was bad. So much so that I thought my physical health had been -- you know, a year ago in June I had open heart surgery. This May, I mean, it knocked me back a few steps because I'm not here just to show up. I'm here to win.
“It haunted me. It pained me.
“That's why I just said right after Indy, I said, we're going to create and instill and initiate the Indy recovery plan, which we're in the process of doing, which is all about looking into why we performed so poorly and fixing those issues so that next May we're fighting for the pole, and that's our goal.
“I've got great people to help me do that: Steve Eriksen, Stefano Sordo, Ricardo Nault.
“May was hell for me. That's why we made the decisions that we made, and they weren't easy. I think we're getting the results of those, but I don't take any confidence that we're there yet.
“You know, when you look at Penske or you look at Ganassi, or McLaren I think this year has done a very good job. Consistently they're up there in the top 10. That's what you have to be to win these races. You have to be in the top 10. Really you have to be in the top 6 to get a legitimate shot. We're not there yet.
“Maybe one of us is there or two like at Mid-Ohio, but all three aren't there. We need to have all three cars in the top 6, top 10 every single race. I don't care what kind of track is it is.
“We get to that point, then I think we've done our job because then we'll figure in every race. Right now we're not there yet.”