Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
GMR Grand Prix – Indianapolis Motor Speedway
NTT INDYCAR SERIES
QUALIFYING NOTES/QUOTES – July 3, 2020
RAHAL EARNED HIS BEST START OF FOURTH PLACE ON THE IMS ROAD COURSE FOR THE GMR GRAND PRIX; PIGOT AND SATO TO START 16TH AND 17TH RESPECTIVELY
1) Will Power 1:10.1779 / 125.116 mph (Group 2, Round 3)
4) Graham Rahal 1:10.5844 / 124.396 mph (Group 2, Round 3)
16) Spencer Pigot 1:10.6350 / 124.307 mph (Group 2, Round 1)
17) Takuma Sato 1:10.8853 / 123.868 mph (Group 1, Round 1)
GRAHAM RAHAL, No 15 Fifth Third Bank Dallara/Honda/Firestone: “It was a good end to our first day here at the GMR Grand Prix with qualifying obviously. We’ll start fourth so it’s a really good run for us in the Fifth Third Bank team. The guys did a great job. We had a really good lap in Round 2 to get us into Round 3 and then in Q3 we had one going that was just a hair better but it still ended up being our best lap. All in all I’m happy with P4; we can go race from there, we can do a good job from there. Honda has done an amazing job; you could see it. The other guys (Takuma and Spencer) didn’t have the luck we did today in getting through but they will. They will have a good day tomorrow. We’re pretty pleased with today.”
TAKUMA SATO, No. 30 Panasonic / One Cure Dallara/Honda/Firestone: “It was a tough one. Starting off I thought the car was pretty good. I thought we were hovering on position three or four on the black tires and then I put the red on and just didn’t get any bite with it; the car started to slide. And the grip wasn’t there as expected so unfortunately, I wasn’t able to improve the time a lot and ended up 17th. But Graham did a great job and had a great qualifying. We’ll go have a look and compare data to see what we can do and hopefully all three of us will be strong for the race.”
SPENCER PIGOT, No. 45 Mi-Jack / Shield Cleansers Dallara/Honda/Firestone: “Overall the day wasn’t too bad. I think we made some good adjustments and changes throughout the first practice. Qualifying was just really tricky; it was super-hot. It was easy to miss a little bit of time. I think we have a pretty-solid car. It was pretty good on blacks (primary Firestone tires) and on reds, we’re just missed it a little bit. Hopefully tomorrow we can make a few ore changes in warmup and have a good debut race for everyone at RLL with Citrone/Buhl Autosport.”
RLL AT THE IMS ROAD COURSE…. The GMR Grand Prix will mark the seventh NTT INDYCAR SERIES race on the 2.439-mile road course. The team’s best finish here is second in 2015 by Rahal and best start is fourth in 2020, also by Rahal.
NEXT UP: The pre-race warm-up will take place tomorrow from 9-9:30 a.m. ET and NBC will begin their broadcast of the GMR Grand Prix beginning at 12 PM ET.