INDIANAPOLIS — Only feet away from the world-famous yard of bricks that dot the Indianapolis Motor Speedway finish line, NTT IndyCar Series star Graham Rahal sat on the pit wall, face covered in sweat, cheeks red and exhausted.
He had just completed an 85-lap battle in which he attempted to defeat current series points leader Alex Palou – an effort he claimed was one of his most flawless performances.
“I genuinely am proud, like I don’t think I locked up once,” Rahal told reporters post-race. “I don’t think I put one wheel wrong. I defended as best I could. I tried to just drive as flawlessly as I could because I knew that was the only way to beat them.”
But after he held off the Spaniard for a whole 49 laps, endured two pit cycles and the threat of lap traffic, he failed to solve what he dubbed on Friday (May 9) afternoon the “Palou problem.”
Rahal had qualified second the day before on Friday afternoon alongside the Chip Ganassi Racing (CGR) driver, joining his two Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing teammates in the top five. It was his best start in the series since winning the pole at Portland International Raceway in 2023.
Contrary to Saturday afternoon, he was all smiles and laughs after that session.
“I feel really good about it,” Rahal told Frontstretch after qualifying. “I feel good about where we’re at, and three of our cars in the top five, it’s huge for our team.”
“I knew Alex [Palou] was going to have a new set of reds at the very finish, and that it was almost impossible to beat him unless he stumbled, but it doesn’t mean tomorrow we can’t hang with him, so we’re going to try our best. We’re going to put our best foot forward, and he’s obviously been on a roll this year, but he can give up a win every once in a while.”
Upon entering the first corner after the grand prix start, he had even more to smile about. Rahal leapt ahead of polesitter Palou out of turn 1, clearing the No. 10 Honda. From there, he pulled away. All according to plan.
“That was my strategy was to force the issue with him, you know, pinch him,” Rahal claimed. “I watched the video of him with Christian [Lundgaard] last year, and he purposely pushed Christian wide out of [turn 1], so I wanted to do enough and get far enough by him that he couldn’t do that.
“If we just let him go, that race would have been a lot more boring than what it was.”
However, after the first cycle of green flag pit stops, Palou snuck back into the rearview of Ohio native. While Rahal seemed to pull away at times, Palou was always there stalking for a number of laps, never leaving a gap of more than a second between the two.
That is, until they both pitted on lap 42. Rahal, who had already used both of his allotted alternate tires, placed one of them back on. Palou opted to use a brand-new pair of primary Firestones.
For 16 laps, his old, red-walled tires held on. Alas, Palou only got closer and closer as his sturdier black-walls remained, and on lap 58, the reigning series champion finally overtook the No. 15 Honda and never looked back.
Rahal never made a mistake. He simply wasn’t fast enough.
“They’re just so fast,” a frustrated Rahal said of CGR. “It’s not just a little, it’s everywhere. Even on the straightaways, they just accelerate at a different pace when they’re behind you. [Kyle] Kirkwood or any of those guys really couldn’t gain on me. Any Ganassi car behind me was like they had 10 extra pounds of boost. It’s wild.
“We just got to keep working hard to figure out what the hell they’re doing because … I had every driver come up and down pit lane telling me to take it to him today and try as best I could. I tried to make them all proud, but it is so hard right now to hold those guys off.”
After a slow final pit stop and a late-race caution with 15 laps to go, Rahal faded to sixth place where he remained until the checkered flag. It is his best result in the open-wheel series since 2023 at the same circuit and closed a day where he led the most laps of anyone else in the field, including the now four-time winner of an only five-race-old season.
“I mean, it was a great day,” the RLL Racing driver admitted. “I don’t have any issues. The boys did a wonderful job all weekend, and you know, I’m happy we had a great result. Obviously, we would have all liked to be a little higher up, but at the end of the day, P6 is nothing to frown upon these days.”
“As competitive as this group is nowadays, you’ve got to be flawless and look, we only beat by Ganassi’s and [Team] Penske’s in one [Arrow] McLaren today.
“I mean we did a damn good job for where we’ve been and we’ll keep hunting at them. We just need the boost.”
Now, he looks forward to the next two weeks that all culminate to the Greatest Spectacle in Racing: the Indianapolis 500.
“I feel good,” Rahal said. “I said it last night. I feel good after the test, and obviously this is a good bump for the boys. They did a good job.”
Time to rerack and get ready for first practice on Tuesday.
Dalton Hopkins began writing for Frontstretch in April 2021. Currently, he is the lead writer for the weekly Thinkin' Out Loud column, co-host of the Frontstretch Happy Hour podcast, and one of our lead reporters. Beforehand, he wrote for IMSA shortly after graduating from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in 2019. Simultaneously, he also serves as a Captain in the US Army.
Follow Dalton on Twitter @PitLaneCPT