Rahal Qualified Sixth for the Kohler Grand Prix at Road America

Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing

Kohler Grand Prix at Road America

Verizon IndyCar Series

QUALIFYING NOTES/QUOTES – June 25, 2016

RAHAL QUALIFIED SIXTH FOR THE KOHLER GRAND PRIX AT ROAD AMERICA

1)         Will Power                 1:42.2105 / 141.379 mph       (Group 2, Round 3)

6)         Graham Rahal           1:43.7782 / 139.243 mph       (Group 1, Round 3)

GRAHAM RAHAL, No. 15 Gehl / D-A Lubricant Dallara/Honda/Firestone:  “We’re surrounded by our championship competitors and the top Honda so it feels good to be in that position. I feel like the Gehl / D-A Lubricant Honda is pretty good going into the race. We’ve got to improve it a little bit but these guys have worked extremely hard to get us in this position. Yeah it would be nice to be on pole but I didn’t think that we had enough to get that once I saw the times those guys did. The 2.5 (1:42.55) I did in Round 2 was just about as good of a lap that I thought I could do. On the last round, we decided to go with new blacks (tires) instead of used reds because maybe used reds will be better tomorrow so I didn’t want to put a second run on them.  I thought we could still do a high two on blacks, and we probably could have but I chased throttle extremely hard coming out of Turn 5 and almost looped it so we lost that lap.  I haven’t raced on a track this difficult in a long time. It seems like every lap you do, the track gives you a little something different each lap. It’s always a challenge. We need a good win this year and want to get a win for Honda and be the team to get them back in Victory Lane at Road America. It’s a big race for our championship this year. If we can have a good day tomorrow, it could really catapult us up. It’s pretty clear that in this part of the world there is a great amount of support for Indy car racing and it’s awesome to be here.”

• FAST FACTS: In Round 3 of qualifying, Rahal was the only driver of the six to run on black Firestone tires, thus saving a set of the faster, red Firestone alternate tires for the race… Will be Rahal’s sixth race here and second in a Champ or Indy car. He finished third in the 2007 Champ Car race after starting fourth with Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing.  An electrical failure in the season-finale Atlantic Championship race in 2006 at Road America after starting third led to a runner-up finish in the title fight with eventual champion Simon Pagenaud after he retired in 20th place.  Rahal also competed in two Formula BMW events here in 2004 and once in Star Mazda in 2005… He is currently ranked 12th in series point standings with 225, only 17 points behind fifth place Alexander Rossi.

RAHAL LETTERMAN LANIGAN RACING AT ROAD AMERICA … This will mark the team’s 13th time to compete in an Indy car race here and first since 2003. The team competed in CART and Champ Car-sanctioned raced here from 1992-2003 with a best starting position of pole by Kenny Brack in 2001 and best finish of second place by Bobby Rahal in 1996. The team has earned a total of four podium finishes here (2nd – Rahal 1996; 3rd – Rahal 1992-1993, Kenny Brack 2000).

NEXT UP: Pre-race warmup will take place tomorrow from 8:00-8:30 a.m. CT and the 50-lap Kohler Grand Prix will take the Green Flag at 12:15 CT. NBCSN will begin coverage of the Kohler Grand Prix at 12:30 PM ET Sunday. Timing and Scoring information and live streaming video is available for all sessions from www.indycar.com and includes live commentary by the INDYCAR Radio Network.

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