Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
Indianapolis 500
Verizon IndyCar Series
FAST FRIDAY NOTES/QUOTES – May 16, 2014
COOL, WET CONDITIONS LIMITED TRACK TIME AGAIN ON FAST FRIDAY; SERVIA OPTIMISTIC ABOUT HIS SHORT RUN BUT RAHAL DIDN’T TURN A FAST LAP
1) Ed Carpenter 230.522 mph 8 laps
18) Oriol Servia 226.387 mph 8 laps
25) Graham Rahal 54.039 mph 2 laps
OVERALL: Morning showers delayed the start of today’s final practice from the scheduled 12 p.m. EDT start until just after 2 p.m. Additional showers brought an end to the day after approx. 20 minutes of green-flag time.
GRAHAM RAHAL, No. 15 National Guard Dallara/Honda/Firestone: “I think we have a pretty good car but we haven’t trimmed out once yet this week, so we’re going to find out tomorrow. Tomorrow morning’s practice is going to be busy. We have a lot of tires and we’re going to have to pump through a lot of stuff in a hurry.”
ORIOL SERVIA, No. 16 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Dallara/Honda/Firestone: “We did look decent on speeds without the tow and were sixth on the no tow list which was decent and at least in the top-10. Its only one run so you can’t really read too much into it but it’s a good start. Unfortunately we didn’t run much more which we all wanted to do. It will be an even interesting qualifying weekend. It’s not what you want. For one, you want to try the high boost because we’re all going to go five or six miles an hour faster than we were yesterday and we all have to trim (aerodynamics) and really feel how the car is going to be but at the end of the day everyone is in the same boat so you just need to think that you want to be just a little bit better than they are in your head because of course you have a lot of unknowns going into qualifying. Tomorrow’s practice, if it stays dry, is supposed to take place in really cold conditions — even colder than it was today. It’s another awkward Month of May weather wise and I’m sure that race day will be really hot and we’ve been running in really cold conditions. We’re going to have to get our engineers punching some numbers to make a good guess on what the cars are going to do when it gets warmer.”
RAHAL LETTERMAN LANIGAN RACING AT INDY … The team’s highest start and finish in the event came in 2004 when Buddy Rice won from pole. In addition, the team has earned a total of four podiums (2nd – Meira 2005; 3rd – Rahal 1994, 1995). The 2014 race will mark the 17th year for the team in the event. Prior to 2014, the team prepared a total of 30 entries for drivers such as Bobby Rahal (1992-1995), Mike Groff (1994), Raul Boesel (1995), Jimmy Vasser (2002-2003), Kenny Brack (2003, 2005), Buddy Rice (2004, 2006; DNC 2005 due to practice crash), Vitor Meira (2004, 2005), Roger Yasukawa (2004), Danica Patrick (2005, 2006), Jeff Simmons (2006, 2007), Scott Sharp (2007), Ryan Hunter-Reay (2008), Oriol Servia (2009), Graham Rahal (2010 and 2013), Bertrand Baguette (2011), Jay Howard (2011), Takuma Sato (2012), Michel Jourdain (2012) and James Jakes (2013).
NEXT UP: The first day of qualifying will take place tomorrow to lock-in the top-30 starting positions. ABC will begin coverage at 4 p.m. EDT. The final round of qualifying will take place on Sunday and will determine the starting order for the 33-car field. ABC will begin coverage that day at 1 p.m. EDT. Timing and Scoring information is available for all sessions from www.indycar.com and includes live commentary by the IMS Radio Network.
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