Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama
Verizon IndyCar Series
PRACTICE NOTES/QUOTES — Friday, April 22, 2016
RAHAL SET THE SIXTH FASTEST TIME OVERALL IN PRACTICE FOR THE HONDA INDY GRAND PRIX OF ALABAMA
1st: Takuma Sato 1:07.2157 / 123.186 mph
6th: Graham Rahal 1:07.3494 / 122.952 mph (5th fastest in Practice 2)
GRAHAM RAHAL, No. 15 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Dallara/Honda/Firestone: “Overall I feel pretty good with how we ran today. I feel like we have a decent car. Obviously I wanted to run a better lap at the end on new tires but it just didn’t quite work out. We are learning a lot of things that will help improve the car. We utilized the second session as a test session and kind of departed from where we were this morning and so far, so good. It would be great to win this race but, for us, we just need to get this season kicked off and there would be no better way to do that than to win.”
RLL AT BARBER: In 2015, Graham Rahal brought the team its best starting position of eighth and finishing position of second at Barber. In 2014, Rahal finished 17th after running as high as 10th but was hit by two cars. Servia started 19th, ran as high as 14th and finished 20th. In 2013, Rahal set a lap time fast enough to progress to Round 2 and qualify in the top-12 if he had been in Group 2 but he was in Group 1 and ultimately qualified 21st. He had to pit for a new nose on the opening lap after the field checked up and he hit Oriol Servia. He moved up to 12th place but ran out of fuel on the final lap due to a malfunction in the fueling system and dropped to 21st. James Jakes qualified 11th in 2013 but had to pit early in the race when the camber shims fell out of the left rear upright which put him two laps down to the leader. He soldiered on through fueling issues, set the fastest lap of the race and finished 23rd. In 2012, Takuma Sato set the third fastest time in Friday’s first practice for the team and was fastest in the wet second session but traffic limited his qualifying performance to 16th. In the race he passed four cars for 12th place on red alternate tires but struggled on primary tires and ultimately retired in 24th place due to mechanical failure after 52/90 laps.
NEXT UP: Final practice will take place tomorrow from 11:00 – 11:45 a.m. CT and qualifying will be 3:00-4:15 CT. NBCSN will broadcast qualifying live from 4:00-5:30 ET. The Honda Grand Prix of Alabama will be televised live on NBCSN from 3:00-6:00 PM ET Sunday, April 24.
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