Rain Limited Running on the First Day of the Indy GP of Louisiana; Rahal was 16th Overall with Time Set in First Practice

Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg
Verizon IndyCar Series
NOTES/QUOTES – Friday, April 10, 2015

RAIN LIMITED RUNNING ON THE FIRST DAY OF THE INDY GRAND PRIX OF LOUISIANA; RAHAL WAS 16TH OVERALL WITH TIME SET IN FIRST PRACTICE

1) Tony Kanaan 1:18.8753 / 125.058 mph (Set in Practice 1; P2 was delayed & wet)
16) Graham Rahal 1:19.8876 / 123.473 mph (Set in Practice 1; P2 was delayed & wet)

GRAHAM RAHAL, No. 15 D-A Lubricant Company Dallara/Honda/Firestone: “We didn’t have the best first session but I really do feel that we learned a lot and figured some stuff out with the car. We’re going to go back more towards what we ran here at the test, which will probably help us. The track temp was so much warmer today than when we tested here. It’s really kind of hard to tell exactly where we need to be with the car setup but I think we’ll be okay. We have learned a lot and the guys are doing a great job. We’ll just keep working hard on this thing and get it better and better. We’re not far off, it’s just so competitive. We’ll be there; we’ll be fine. There wasn’t much to be learned in the wet session but we had a couple of things we wanted to check and were able to do that.

(On racing in the rain:) “Racing in the rain is always a different art. I think the biggest thing here is to see how the drainage will be. We’re going to have to see how that plays out. It is a permanent road course so that should help versus some of the street courses.”

* FAST FACTS: It is Rahal’s first time to race at NOLA Motorsports Park… Prior to 2015, the Ohio native recorded 110 starts between the Champ Car World Series and IZOD IndyCar Series capturing one win, two poles, 21 top-five finishes — including his 2008 win at St. Petersburg — 49 top-10’s, and led a total of 121 laps. In addition, he won poles at St. Petersburg (street course) and Kansas Speedway (oval) in 2009. Rahal came close to winning again in 2012 as he led the closing laps at Texas Motor Speedway before a slight brush of the wall with two laps to go forced him to settle for second place. He finished second again in Long Beach in 2013 and had competitive runs at Iowa, where he won Heat Race 1, Sonoma and Baltimore in 2013. The highlight of his 2014 season was a second place finish in Dual 1 in Detroit.

INAUGURAL RACE AT NOLA MOTORSPORTS PARK FOR RLL: The Indy Grand Prix of Louisiana marks the inaugural IndyCar Series event at this track.

NEXT UP: Practice will take place tomorrow from 12:30-1:15 p.m. CT. Qualifying will take place from 4:15-5:30 PM. Timing and Scoring information and live streaming video is available for all sessions from www.indycar.com. The Indy Grand Prix of Louisiana will be televised live on NBCSN at 2:30 PM ET Sunday, April 12.