Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
BitNile.com Grand Prix of Portland
NTT INDYCAR SERIES
QUALIFYING NOTES / QUOTES – September 2, 2023
RAHAL EARNED HIS SECOND POLE OF THE SEASON AND THE TEAM’S FOURTH IN 2023 FOR THE BITNILE.COM GRAND PRIX OF PORTLAND; LUNDGAARD AND VIPS 17TH AND 18TH
1) Graham Rahal 58.3195 / 121.236 mph (Group 1, Round 3)
17) Christian Lundgaard 58.3678 / 121.135 mph (Group 1, Round 1)
18) Juri Vips 58.7454 / 120.357 mph (Group 2, Round 1)
GRAHAM RAHAL, No. 15 PeopleReady Dallara/Honda/Firestone: “Everybody has pushed so hard to get our team back to this point and it’s nice to have two poles in the past three races here at the end of the year. Hopefully we can finish this deal off tomorrow and get a win in the PeopleReady Honda. It would be pretty sweet. We used less black’s (primary Firestone tires) through the whole weekend so far than everybody else so we had sets to use. We felt our car was very fast on blacks. It was good on red’s too, but I thought that blacks were the power play there. I feel our race car is better than our qualifying car to be honest. We’ll see how warmup goes here shortly but it felt really good to put that lap in. We’ll focus on having good stops, the strategy will hopefully be straightforward.”
JURI VIPS, No. 30 Kustom Entertainment Dallara/Honda/Firestone: “We didn’t quite nail it in qualifying. It was looking really good this morning; I just think we went a little bit in the wrong direction collectively. There are a couple of things I could have done differently as well. It’s all new to me with the bars and stuff so I think I should have been very aggressive with them in that session since we started a little bit out of the window. But it was exciting to get past my first qualifying session in INDYCAR. I’m sure that we can move forward a lot in the race. For the final practice we will focus on how the car behaves with heavy fuel, out laps, pit stops and more. I’m happy there is such a thing as warmups in INDYCAR. It definitely helps my situation.”
CHRISTIAN LUNDGAARD, No. 45 Hy-Vee Dallara/Honda/Firestone: “Obviously, it was a very short qualifying session. Obviously, Graham being on pole proves what was in the car. We made some changes overnight which didn’t go our way which was hidden a little bit in the cooler track temperatures this morning. Even though we knew qualifying was going to be tricky – especially with the balance we had — no matter what, it’s a disappointing result. There is a lot of frustration right now, but we’ll have to see what we can do tomorrow to get the No. 45 Hy-Vee car up front.”
THIRD POLE FOR RAHAL LETTERMAN LANIGAN RACING AT PORTLAND … Sato brought the team its second win here in 2018 in Indy car racing’s returning to PIR for the first time since the 24th consecutive race was held in 2007. The 2023 race will mark the 17th time for RLL to compete in an Indy car race here. The team competed in CART and Champ Car-sanctioned races at PIR from 1992-2003 with a best starting position of pole by Bryan Herta in 1998 and Max Papis in 2001 and best finish of first place by Max Papis in 2001 and Sato in 2018. Graham Rahal’s pole today is the THIRD for the team here. RLL has earned a total of four podium finishes (3rd – B. Rahal 1995, Herta 1998) and has led a total of 153 laps here (1998: Herta, 20; 2001: Papis, 69; 2018: Sato: 25; 2021: G. Rahal 36; 2022: Rahal, 2 & Lundgaard, 1). In addition, the team competed in the Toyota Atlantic races here in 2003 (Danica Patrick, Jon Fogerty) and 2004 (Patrick and Chris Festa).
NEXT UP: The BitNile.com Grand Prix of Portland will be televised live on NBC beginning at 3 PM ET Sunday, September 3.