Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach
Round 3 of 17 in the NTT INDYCAR SERIES
RACE NOTES / QUOTES – Sunday, April 21, 2024
RAHAL. LUNDGAARD AND FITTIPALDI FACED CHALLENGES IN THE ACURA GRAND PRIX OF LONG BEACH AND FINISHED 17TH, 23RD AND 24TH, RESPECTIVELY
GRAHAM RAHAL, No. 15 Fleet Cost & Care Dallara/Honda/Firestone: “We were solid today. I thought we were on for a good top-10. Obviously, we had one stop where the car had a fuel problem though. Something went wrong with the red head and it wouldn’t get fuel in it and so that cost us 12-14 seconds and nowadays that makes all the difference so unfortunately what we were on for, which I thought was going to be a great result, ended up not being so good but I’m proud of the guys. It was very disappointing, but I thought we took steps forward in our competitiveness on the road and street courses and we’ve just got to keep chugging.”
PIETRO FITTIPALDI, No. 30 Mi-Jack Dallara/Honda/Firestone: “We went on an early fuel savings strategy and unfortunately it didn’t work. We had a technical issue in the pit stop with the fueling which then, because we were on a fuel savings strategy and had an issue with the fueling, it put us completely out of the window with strategy so that was our race. I loved being able to race at Long Beach. It’s an amazing track but it’s unfortunate that we couldn’t really show anything that we had in the race.”
CHRISTIAN LUNDGAARD, No. 45 Hy-Vee Dallara/Honda/Firestone: “It was a long day today. Our race became even more challenging early on with taking that caution to pit and then having the penalty. In hindsight maybe it was the wrong decision to pit with the first set of alternates (tires) in the beginning of the race. I think that hurt us quite a bit. It was a straight fuel save race from there and we weren’t able to save fuel enough fuel because I think we were one of the cars that wasn’t trimmed so it was a long and tough day.”
NEXT UP: The Children’s of Alabama Indy Grand Prix at Barber Motorsports Park will take place next Sunday, April 28.