Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama
Verizon IndyCar Series
QUALIFYING NOTES/QUOTES – April 26, 2014
RAHAL AND SERVIA QUALIFIED 18TH AND 19TH FOR THE HONDA INDY GRAND PRIX OF ALABAMA
1) Will Power 1:08.3120 / 121.209 mph (Group 1; set in Round 3)
18) Graham Rahal 1:09.2228 / 119.614 mph (Group 2; set in Round 1)
19) Oriol Servia 1:09.2935 / 119.492 mph (Group 1; set in Round 1)
GRAHAM RAHAL, No. 15 National Guard Dallara/Honda/Firestone: “We’ve made a lot of progress from yesterday to today. We tried some things for qualifying and need to take a look at them and regroup for the morning. We had a really great car in the race in Long Beach after some improvements in the morning warm-up and are hoping for the same here. We’re a strong group and we’ll keep fighting.”
ORIOL SERVIA, No. 16 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Dallara/Honda/Firestone: “Our position is not what we wanted or hoped for but only so many can get in Round 2. We just didn’t get it just right and as we were saying earlier, this track doesn’t forgive any unbalance. There are just too many corners and long corners. We just didn’t hit it right but we’re going to hit it right tomorrow. I had a one lap wonder which was the first lap on red tires that I think would have just made the cut but two cars in front of me came out of the pits and I had to give up in the middle of the lap. At that point we were already two-and-one-half tenths up. That was the lap when the tires were at the peak and I couldn’t do it again. But still we’re not where we need to be or where we’re hopefully going to be tomorrow.”
RLL AT BARBER …. This will mark the third IndyCar race for the team at Barber Motorsports Park (BMP). In 2013, Rahal set a lap time fast enough to progress to Round 2 and qualify in the top-12 if he had been in Group 2 but he was in Group 1 and ultimately qualified 21st. He had to pit for a new nose on the opening lap after the field checked up and he hit Servia. He moved up to 12th place but ran out of fuel on the final lap due to a malfunction in the fueling system and dropped to 21st. James Jakes qualified 11th in 2013 but had to pit early in the race when the camber shims fell out of the left rear upright which put him two laps down to the leader. He soldiered on through fueling issues, set the fastest lap of the race and finished 23rd. In 2012, Takuma Sato set the third fastest time in Friday’s first practice and was fastest in the wet second session but traffic limited his qualifying performance to 16th. In the race he passed four cars for 12th place on red alternate tires but struggled on primary tires and ultimately retired in 24th place due to mechanical failure after 52/90 laps.
NEXT UP: The pre-race warm-up will take place tomorrow morning from 9:45-10:15 AM CT. The Honda Indy GP of Alabama will be televised live on NBCSN at 2:30 PM ET Sunday, April 27. Timing and Scoring information is available for all sessions from www.indycar.com.
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