Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
KOHLER Grand Prix at Road America
Verizon IndyCar Series
RACE NOTES/QUOTES – June 24, 2018
SATO EARNED HIS BEST FINISH OF THE SEASON WITH FOURTH IN THE KOHLER GRAND PRIX AT ROAD AMERICA; RAHAL FINISHED SIXTH
GRAHAM RAHAL, No. 15 GEHL Dallara/Honda/Firestone: “We were decent. We went to the new reds on the third stint and probably just went on them too early, probably needed to keep them for the last stint. Overall the car was decent — not great — we have to continue to work on it. We can be a top-five, top-six car but how do we win? We went to new reds on the third stint and it catapulted us up into the group with Robbie, Takuma and everyone but I think we needed them at the end. We just have to go back and review that because we definitely needed new reds to close out the race. At the end of the day it was a great day in the GEHL machine with another consistent result. How about that crowd? It’s unbelievable when you drive around the track and see that many people so thank you to everyone for coming out and supporting us. It was just like our other races. I shouldn’t be disappointed but we want to win. We have finished in the top-10 in every race this year but one but at some point we need to improve enough to win these things. We’ll go enjoy the Fourth of July and then come back to battle at Iowa.”
TAKUMA SATO, No. 30 Mi-Jack / Panasonic Dallara/Honda/Firestone: “We had a fast car. It’s a shame that we missed the podium but we need to find a little more speed. Thanks to the fans for all the support. It was another great event at Road America. We struggled at the beginning of the season and lost too much ground but Graham and I are working close with the engineering side and shared a lot of stuff and picked up speed. I made a good start at the beginning and it was really fun. At one point I was side-by-side (with Rossi) and pushed hard and obviously not very happy with that but in the end we got the spot back and close to the podium. In high level professional racing you shouldn’t really be bumping each other. Obviously I gave him room enough and he came inside. He just couldn’t stop and came into me, and bumped me. He did exactly the same thing to Wickens at the start and I’m surprised the stewards didn’t take action. I’m okay with side-by-side just don’t touch me. The guys did a tremendous job over the weekend and we hope to carry momentum to Iowa.”
NEXT UP: The series will take next weekend off before returning to action on July 8 for the Iowa Corn Indy 300 at Iowa Speedway.
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