Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
Honda Indy Toronto 2 in T.O. – Streets around Exhibition Place
Verizon IndyCar Series
PRACTICE NOTES/QUOTES – Friday, July 18, 2014
RAHAL AND FILIPPI SET THE 18TH AND 21ST FASTEST TIMES OVERALL IN PRACTICE FOR THE HONDA INDY TORONTO 2 IN T.O.; MULTIPLE RED FLAGS LED TO ABBREVIATED SESSION
FASTEST: Simon Pagenaud 1:00.0084 / 105.285 mph
18th: Graham Rahal 1:00.9142 / 103.720 mph
21st: Luca Filippi 1:01.0550 / 103.480 mph
GRAHAM RAHAL, No. 15 National Guard Dallara/Honda/Firestone: “We’re making some good gains with the National Guard car. We are continuing to learn with our street course package and we learned a couple of things that would probably have helped at the other street courses but we just never got to run new tires in the afternoon session due to the red flags to know exactly where we are competitive-wise. But either way it’s going to be a hard-fought battle tomorrow. If you look at the timesheets, the entire field is covered by 1.2 seconds which is incredible so we’re going to have to be on top of our game tomorrow but I feel like we have a good shot at it.”
LUCA FILIPPI, No. 16 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Dallara/Honda/Firestone: “The course is quite tricky because of the surface changes around the circuit and it wasn’t easy to get confidence so I took it easy today and we worked on the setup to give me better confidence with the car which we had at the end but we didn’t have the time to make a new tire run because of the red flag. We believe we could have been competitive. For sure we are improving so I’m not worried about the results of today and I am very motivated for tomorrow.”
RLL AT TOROTO: The Honda Indy Toronto will mark the 15th year of Indy car racing for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing (RLL) here and the team’s 16th and 17th races. The team also competed in the Atlantic Series races here in 2003 and 2004. The team earned a total of four second place finishes (Rahal 1992, 1994, 1995; Michel Jourdain Jr. 2003) and best start was pole in 1992 by Bobby Rahal. Prior to the 2014 event, the team prepared a total of 26 Indy car entries for drivers Bobby Rahal (1992-98), Mike Groff (1994), Raul Boesel (1995), Bryan Herta (1996-99), Max Papis (1999-2001), Jimmy Vasser (2002), Michel Jourdain Jr. (2002-03), Takuma Sato (2012), Graham Rahal (2013 x 2) and James Jakes (2013 x 2).The team also prepared three Toyota Atlantic entries (Danica Patrick 2003-2004; Chris Festa 2004).The team has earned FIVE podiums (3rd – Rahal 1996), 9 top-five’s and 17 top-10 finishes at the track. Team co-owner Rahal competed in Toronto from 1986-1991 as a driver and from 1992-1998 as a team owner/driver. In 13 events, he earned one WIN (1986), two POLES (1987, 1992), and seven PODIUMS. He also started on the front row three times, earned 10 top-five and 11 top-10 finishes.
NEXT UP: Qualifying for Race 1 will take place tomorrow from 10:00-11:10 a.m. ET and will be televised on NBCSN at 2 p.m. ET. The first of two 85-lap races will take the Green Flag at 3:55 p.m. ET Saturday and be televised live on NBC Sports Network beginning at 3:00 p.m. ET. Streaming video and Timing and Scoring information is available for all practice sessions from www.indycar.com and includes commentary by the IMS Radio Network. Timing and Scoring information for qualifying is also available live with commentary.
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