Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama
Round 1 of 17 in the NTT INDYCAR SERIES
QUALIFYING NOTES/QUOTES – Saturday, April 17, 2021
RAHAL AND SATO TO START THE HONDA INDY GRAND PRIX OF ALABAMA 18TH AND 19TH RESPECTIVELY
1) Pato O’Ward 1:05.8479 / 125.744 mph (Group 2, Round 3)
18) Graham Rahal 1:06.8489 / 123.861 mph (Group 2, Round 1)
19) Takuma Sato 1:07.1026 / 123.393 mph (Group 1, Round 1)
GRAHAM RAHAL, No. 15 Code 3 Associates Dallara/Honda/Firestone: “Qualifying is in the books here in Alabama for the first race of the year. I’m disappointed obviously for Code 3 Associates and all of our partners. It’s not the performance that we expect of ourselves and of our organization. Honestly. I’m baffled. I think everybody here is a little bit baffled. We had a great test here. Everybody is confused at the performance side of it but we’re going to put our heads down tonight and try to improve. We had a great test here. We were faster than the majority of these guys and we can’t seem to back it up on the weekend but hopefully tomorrow will be a better day.”
TAKUMA SATO, No. 30 Panasonic / Shield Cleansers Dallara/Honda/Firestone: “Qualifying for the first race is not what we wanted. We struggled a lot. Since 2019 the track changed in a good way, of course. It’s a lot faster. Its demanding in a different way and we lost the speed, relatively so my Panasonic / Shield Cleansers car was unfortunately P20 in qualifying but we will find some speed. We will still have warmup before the race and hopefully we can find some speed and have a good result for the weekend..”
RLL AT BARBER: In 2019, the team qualified 1-2 for the 2019 race here, which was the first time the team locked out the front row of an Indy car race since the September 11, 2005 race at Chicagoland when Danica Patrick won pole and Buddy Rice started second. Sato led 74 of 90 laps en route to victory. The 2021 Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama will mark the ninth INDYCAR SERIES race for the team at Barber Motorsports Park (BMP).
NEXT UP: Pre-race warmup will take place tomorrow from 10:30 – 11 a.m. CT. The Honda Grand Prix of Alabama will be televised on NBC from 3:00-6:00 PM ET Sunday, April 18.