Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg
NTT INDYCAR SERIES
QUALIFYING NOTES/QUOTES – Saturday, March 4, 2023
LUNDGAARD, HARVEY AND RAHAL TO START 11TH, 19TH AND 20TH IN THE FIRESTONE GRAND PRIX OF ST. PETE
1) Romain Grosjean 59.5532 / 108.810 mph (Group 2, Round 3)
11) Christian Lundgaard 59.9618 / 108.069 mph (Group 1, Round 2)
19) Jack Harvey 1:00.7270 / 106.707 mph (Group 1, Round 3)
20) Graham Rahal 1:00.3714 / 107.336 mph (Group 2, Round 3)
GRAHAM RAHAL, No. 15 United Rentals Dallara/Honda/Firestone: “We ended up 10th in our session, which was way more compact than Group 1. Actually we made a lot of progress, the car was a lot more consistent. Yesterday I complained about the brakes, and we just changed them for qualifying and the car was night and day and that hampered our session too. It may not look like it, but the truth of the matter is, I think we made some great progress. My very first lap should have been two-to-two-and-one-half-tenths quicker which probably wouldn’t have advanced but I went into Turn 1 and the rears locked and I got a little bit wide and that hurt my best lap on those tires; they’re one lap tires. I’m not going to go to bed tonight angry because I actually feel like, finally this session, we made some progress. Up until this session I was totally lost. I think that we’re on the right path and that we can make a pretty good, pretty-consistent race car out of it. The tire degradation on these green tires is going to be tremendous and so if we can find a way to make those last, we can use strategy to our advantage a little bit here, and if so, I think that we will be okay.”
JACK HARVEY, No. 45 Kustom Entertainment Dallara/Honda/Firestone: “That was actually a disappointing session for us. It sucks that our worst session this weekend was qualifying. The No. 30 Kustom Entertainment car has been really good for our practices so I’m not really sure what happened there in the session. It was a big disappointment because of how good we felt we were. The good news is its going to be a black tire race and the car is good on those so hopefully we can move forward.”
CHRISTIAN LUNDGAARD, No. 45 Hy-Vee Dallara/Honda/Firestone: “I’m happy with how we executed qualifying even though I’m a little disappointed that we had to get through that strategy that we did. Good thing is that it’s a black (tire) race here so we don’t need the reds or greens — the guayule tires. I’m happy that we managed to get through it. It was either starting 18th or starting 11th or 12th and we would rather want to start 11th or 12th. It’s a good execution from the team even though we didn’t have the package that we were expecting to have.”
NEXT UP: The race day warm-up will take place from 9:00 – 9:30 a.m. ET tomorrow. Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg will be televised live on NBC beginning at 12 PM ET on Sunday, March 5 and the Green Flag will fly at 12:30 PM ET.<