Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
The cast: Driver – Graham Rahal. Chief engineer – Eddie Jones
Twitter: @GrahamRahal, @RLLracing
The car: No. 15 Honda
Snapshot: Rahal, 26, is from New Albany, Ohio, and resides in Indianapolis. … Rahal enters his third season with the team and first with Jones as his engineer. … He has made 128 Indy car starts dating to 2007 (Las Vegas Grand Prix). … In 2008, he became the youngest winner of an Indy car race in his first Verizon IndyCar Series start (April 4 at St. Petersburg) and the next year became the youngest Verizon IndyCar Series pole winner (April 5 at St. Petersburg). … He’s engaged to NHRA Funny Car driver Courtney Force. … The team is co-owned by his father, three-time CART champion and 1986 Indianapolis 500 winner Bobby Rahal, TV host David Letterman and businessman Mike Lanigan.
The stats: Rahal recorded a podium finish at Belle Isle 1 (advancing seven positions from his qualifying spot) among four top-10 finishes overall. He led two races for total of 28 laps, including leading 18 laps at Sonoma before having to pit late in 85-lap race and placing 20th, and was running at the finish in 13. … Qualified in the top 10 at four venues, with best of fourth at Houston 1. … Had average start of 14.4 and average finish of 15.0.
The gist: Aside from the appointment of Jones, Mike Talbott, who was most recently senior trackside engineer with Wirth Research in support of Honda Performance Development’s program and worked with Rahal at Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing in 2008, will lead the vehicle dynamics program. Martin Pare, who was race engineer for Rahal at NHLR in 2009-2010 and at Chip Ganassi Racing in 2011-2012 is head of the vehicle ride control development program. … The team is likely for the second consecutive season to be a one-car entry for the season except the Indianapolis 500 Mile Race. “The most important thing is that the team has worked extremely well together,” Graham Rahal said. “That's what we learned last year wasn't the case. I think we're pretty cautious about throwing a second car in there and maybe disrupting that.”... James Jakes was Rahal's teammate in 2013.
He said it: “There's a lot of new faces to our program, but guys that have all been together before, personalities that work extremely well together,” Graham Rahal said. “We've seen already in the first couple tests of the year there's been a lot of progress made. As we look forward, my biggest key is not pressure. If I can qualify better, I think I can win races. When I look at like a lot of races last year, the amount of effort it took to get to the front, we had a lot of other issues, myself included, mistakes we made like Houston. But the amount of effort it takes to get to the front, if you started there, it would be a heck of a lot easier to maintain that.”