IMSA WEATHERTECH SERIES
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Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
Pre-Race Notes
BitNile.com Grand Prix of Portland – Portland International Raceway
Round 15 of 17 in the 2025 NTT INDYCAR SERIES
DATE: August 8-10, 2025
PRACTICE BROADCAST: Live on FS2 on Friday from 5:30–7:00 p.m. ET, live FS1 on Saturday from 12:00-1:00 p.m. ET and 8:30 – 9:00 p.m. ET. Also live on the INDYCAR Radio Network (IRN) and www.indycar.com (timing & scoring + live analysis).
QUALIFYING BROADCAST: Live on FS1, the IRN and www.indycar.com (timing & scoring + live analysis) from 2:30-4:00 p.m. ET Saturday.
RACE BROADCAST: Live on FOX on Sunday, August 10 from 3:00 – 5:30 p.m. ET. And also on the IRN, Sirius XM 160 and the INDYCAR App.
TRACK LAYOUT: 1.964-mile, 12-turn permanent road course
RACE LENGTH: 110 laps / 216.04 miles
2024 WINNER: Will Power
2024 POLESITTER: Santino Ferrucci (58.2846 / 121.475 mph)
RAHAL’S BEST PORTLAND START / FINISH: 1st in 2023 / 5th in 2022; will be his 8th Indy car race here & 10th overall
RAHAL’S HIGHEST SERIES START / FINISH: 5 Poles – St. Pete (street) 2009, Kansas (oval) 2009, Detroit (street) 2017, IMS (road) 2023, Portland 2023 / 6 Wins – St. Pete 2008, Fontana (oval; 500 miles) 2015, Mid-Ohio (road) 2015, Texas (oval) 2016; Detroit Race 1 2017, Detroit Race 2 2017
DEFRANCESCO’S BEST PORTLAND START / FINISH: 20th in 2023 / 16th in 2022 – both with Andretti Steinbrenner Racing; will be his third INDYCAR race here
DEFRANCESCO’S HIGHEST SERIES START / FINISH: 5th at the IMS road course (August 2023, 2025) / 11th at Indy 500 (2025)
FOSTER’S BEST PORTLAND START / FINISH: 1st – NXT in 2023 & ’24, USF2000 ’22 Race 1 / 1st – INDY NXT 2023, USF2000 2022 – Race 1; first INDYCAR race here
FOSTER’S BEST SERIES START / FINISH: Pole at Road America 2025 / 11th (Indy GP and Road America 2025)
RLL’S BEST START / FINISH AT PORTLAND: 1st – Bryan Herta (1998), Max Papis (2001), Graham Rahal (2023) / 1st – Papis (2001) & Takuma Sato (2018); 17th race here
NEWS & NOTES:
RAHAL LETTERMAN LANIGAN RACING AT PORTLAND – POLE IN 2023
The 2025 event will mark the 19th time for Rahal Letterman Lanigan (RLL) Racing to compete in an Indy car race here. The team competed in CART and Champ Car-sanctioned races here from 1992-2003 with a best starting position of pole by Bryan Herta in 1998, Max Papis in 2001 and Graham Rahal in 2023 and best finish of first place in 2018 by Takuma Sato and in 2001 by Max Papis. RLL has earned a total of four podium finishes here (3rd – B. Rahal 1995, Herta 1998) and has led a total of 172 laps (1998: Herta, 20; 2001 Papis, 69; 2018: Sato, 25; 2021: Rahal, 36; 2023: Rahal, 21). In addition, the team competed in the Toyota Atlantic races here in 2003 (Danica Patrick, Jon Fogerty) and 2004 (Patrick and Chris Festa).
Prior to 2025, the team prepared a total of 39 Indy car entries for drivers such as Bobby Rahal (1992-1998), Mike Groff (1993-94), Raul Boesel (1995), Bryan Herta (1996-99), Max Papis (1999-2001), Kenny Brack (2000-01), Jimmy Vasser (2002), Michel Jourdain (2002-2003), Graham Rahal (2018-19, 21-24), Takuma Sato (2018-19, 21), Oliver Askew (2021), Christian Lundgaard (2022-24), Jack Harvey (2022), Pietro Fittipaldi (2024) and Juri Vips (2023-24). The No. 15 Hendrickson Honda entry for Graham Rahal, the No. 30 Dogecoin Honda entry for Devlin DeFrancesco and the No. 45 Droplight Honda entry for Louis Foster will bring that total to 42 in 2025.
RECENT TEAM PERFORMANCE ON ROAD AND STREET COURSES
In the previous six events on road and street courses, RLL was the only team to have all three cars in the Firestone Fast Six at the Sonsio Grand Prix at IMS (2nd – Rahal; 3rd – Foster; 5th – DeFrancesco), was in the Fast Six on the streets of Detroit when Rahal qualified fifth, was the only team to put multiple cars in the Fast Six at Road America when Foster won his maiden pole and Rahal qualified sixth, was in the Fast Six with Foster at Mid-Ohio and Rahal qualified fifth at Toronto. In total, Rahal is one of only six drivers to have been in the Fast Six four or more times, Foster has been in it three times and DeFrancesco once.
GRAHAM AT PORTLAND
It will be the 10th overall race for Graham at PIR and eighth in the main event. Last year, he qualified sixth but had a six-spot grid penalty for an unapproved engine change and started 12th. He lost two spots at the start but gained them back before a caution came out for Dixon, who had an incident with Kirkwood, which led to contact with Fittipaldi. He moved into ninth before his first of three stops and ultimately finished there. In 2023, he started from his fifth career series pole on alternate tires and led the first 21 laps before his first stop to switch to the preferred primary tires that he won pole on. Once he pit, fifth place starter and eventual winner Palou, who started on primary black tires and performed an “overcut” pit strategy, cycled into the lead and held it for the majority of the remaining laps (led 69/110 laps) while Rahal repeatedly struggled with track position and traffic as well as a fueling issue on his final stop and finished 12th. In 2022, Rahal started 11th and finished fifth. He passed Newgarden for 10th on Lap 4 and held the position until the pit cycle started and moved up to the lead by Lap 22 before his first stop on Lap 23. He returned to run eighth and took over seventh when Ericsson was the last driver to pit on Lap 32. He passed Palou on Lap 43 for sixth place and climbed into the lead by Lap 49 on the next pit cycle before making his second stop on Lap 50. Once everything shook out, he was running sixth and claimed fifth when teammate Lundgaard pit on Lap 78. He made his final stop on Lap 79 and ran seventh. He took over sixth place after a restart from contact between Johnson and Veekay and passed Newgarden again on Lap 91/110 for fifth place. For the final stretch, he attempted to pass O’Ward, whom he closed on to run -0.363 on the second to final lap but was unable to pass him and finished fifth. In 2021, he earned his best start of the season at Portland with fifth place. He led two times for a total of 36 laps, which was the most for all drivers, but the timing of a caution negated his pit strategy, and he finished 10th. The series didn’t race in Portland in 2020 due to the pandemic. In 2019, he started 15th and misjudged the braking point into the first turn on the opening lap which resulted in a multi-car crash. His race car was placed outside the track, and the team could not attempt to repair it and he retired in 23rd place. In 2018, he started 10th and had gotten through Turns 1 and 2, which was expected to be action-packed at the start, and after getting through Turn 2, Veach squeezed Hinchcliffe and the two made contact which set off a multi-car crash that collected Hinchcliffe, Marco Andretti, Rahal, points-leader Dixon and his then teammate Ed Jones. Rahal’s car was too damaged to continue so it was towed back to the paddock and after more than one hour he returned to the track to complete a handful of laps to collect two championship points, which was the maximum possible. This move helped him at season’s end. Prior to that, he competed in the 2007 Champ Car World Series race where he started eighth and finished ninth in his rookie season for Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing. He started from pole in the Atlantic’s race here in 2006 but was hit by Simon Pagenaud on Lap 1 and finished 27th. In 2005, he earned his first professional win at PIR in the Star Mazda race after starting fourth and winning by a margin of 0.0317 seconds. He hopes to be able to “close the deal” there after being close in recent years.
“I think we should be very strong in Portland. We’ve seen a year that has shown good improvement on road and street courses, and I hope that continues. I’ve always had a great time in Portland. It’s a beautiful city and it’s a great time of year to be in the northwest and there is beautiful weather there this time of year typically. I think we’ll be very strong there. We’ve had some close calls there in recent years and I hope we can get the job done this time around.
“It’s exciting to see what FOX has done recently. On the promotional side, we have seen the great things they have done and now they should be able to take that up a few notches, even more to help take INDYCAR to new audiences. I think a lot of us are pretty pumped up about that opportunity.”
DEVLIN RETURNS TO PORTLAND AIMING TO REPEAT IMS ROAD COURSE QUALIFYING
‘This will mark Devlin’s third INDYCAR race at PIR. His highest start is 20th in 2023, and his highest finish is 16th in 2022 – both with Andretti Steinbrenner Racing. He’s excited for the opportunity to put all three team cars in the Fast Six again like RLL did on the IMS road course in May.
“The team has a good history at Portland. I think it’s probably our second-best road course, performance-wise, to the Indy road course. The track is very similar to the IMS road course, and we have strong, fast cars at both places so there is no reason why we shouldn’t have a chance to be in the Fast Six again as we were at the Indy road course. We had a good day in the simulator on Monday working on our Portland setup. I’ll be back out in the Dogecoin Honda and am excited to have them on board again and I’m looking forward to having a good weekend.”
FOSTER AIMS TO CONTINUE PORTLAND SUCCESS
Louis competed at PIR in INDY NXT and the USF Pro 2000 series and has four podiums in five events. In INDY NXT, he won from pole in 2023 and finished second from pole in 2024. In the three races at PIR in the 2022 USF Pro 2000 series, he won from pole in Race 1, finished second after starting second in Race 2 and finished sixth after starting second in Race 3. He aims to maximize the weekend and gain ground in the Rookie of the Year standings, where he holds a four point lead over Robert Schwartzman, 172-168.
“I have had some pretty good results at Portland before. I was on pole at both the INDY NXT rounds and had some good results in the USF Pro as well. I like the track; its fun and fast and short as well so its enjoyable. Hopefully it will produce some good racing. I’m looking forward to it. The most challenging area is probably at the fast left-right section at the start, just after the alternate start-finish. We just need to keep building on our performance and have a good race; that’s key this weekend. Its going to be out last road course, which is a type of track we’ve been quite good on all year but just haven’t maximized it so that is the plan this weekend.”
POINTS BATTLE AFTER 14 OF 17 RACES
Heading into Round 15 of 17, Rahal is in 19th place in the series standings with a total of 213 points, Foster is 22nd with 172 and DeFrancesco is 26th with 133. Foster narrowly leads Schwartzman in the Rookie of the Year standings, 172-168.
