Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
Sonsio Group Grand Prix at Road America
NTT INDYCAR SERIES – Round 8 of 17
PRACTICE NOTES / QUOTES – Saturday, June 17, 2023
LUNDGAARD, RAHAL AND HARVEY TO START 7TH, 14TH AND 24TH IN THE SONSIO GRAND PRIX AT ROAD AMERICA
1) Colton Herta 1:40.1945 / 144.223 mph (Group 1, Round 3)
7) Christian Lundgaard 1:41.0480 / 143.005 mph (Group 2, Round 2)
14) Graham Rahal 1:41.5121 / 142.352 mph (Group 2, Round 1)
24) Jack Harvey 1:41.9329 / 141.764 mph (Group 2, Round 1)
GRAHAM RAHAL, No. 15 Fifth Third Bank Dallara/Honda/Firestone: “We’ll start 14th after being seventh in our group and missing the transfer to Round 2. Unfortunately Group 2 was absolutely stacked, crazy stacked with a few Ganassi cars, the three of us, a couple of Penske’s and all of the McLaren’s so we knew it was going to take perfection to advance. We were just too imbalanced unfortunately but it is what it is.
“It’s so fast at most of the corners now that it’s tiny little details that will make a massive time difference on track. We just have to fine-tune a little bit more. The carousel is very interesting. If you’re 6-8 inches to the left, you’re gone. So, it’s a skating rink offline for sure. But I’m just going to say I think Road America, that whoever got the paving job here did an unbelievable job. It is so smooth. I think it’s the smoothest place I’ve ever driven in my entire career. It’s just going to get better. Next year is more cars, and more track days, and the more everything runs here it’s going to get silkier. Beautiful, beautiful place. We’ll put our heads down and focus on tomorrow.”
JACK HARVEY, 30 Mi-Jack Dallara/Honda/Firestone: “It’s just confusing really. Yesterday, we put on reds and just got no grip, which is the same today. It’s so weird. Don’t really understand what’s going on when we put the reds on. It felt like I was on used black’s out there and it’s just not very fast on the reds unfortunately.”
CHRISTIAN LUNDGAARD, No. 45 Vivid Clear Rx Dallara/Honda/Firestone: “We got through Q1. I wouldn’t say that was a surprise, we were second in the group. We were actually on used blacks which I think came as a surprise for a few people but the set that we used at the end of P2 we didn’t get to do a proper push lap and as a team we figured that the peak for us on the blacks came later on the tires than the first couple of laps so we decided to go down that route. It turned out beneficial for us and then we knew that it will take time for the tires to come in which is why we did a few extra laps on the sticker set in Q2. We were looking pretty good but I don’t think there was much more time to extract from the position and the balance that we had. We put on some tires that didn’t really work out for us. It’s a little disappointing being in seventh to be honest, feeling that there was more pace in it. I’m just glad for the team that we bounced back from Detroit and turned in this kind of performance. I think we’re all generally slightly happier. We’re moving in the right direction.”
NEXT UP: The pre-race warm-up will take place from 9:15-9:45 a.m. CT tomorrow and Sunday’s 55-lap Sonsio Grand Prix of Road America will take the Green Flag at 12:30 p.m. CT. Coverage will begin on USA Network at 1 p.m. ET.