Graham Rahal "baffled" by RLL's slowness at WWTR ahead of 300th IndyCar race

Graham Rahal has expressed his disappointment with the lack of pace in the Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing cars at the World Wide Technology Race, where IndyCar is racing this weekend. The No. 15 Honda driver qualified in a lowly 22nd place out of 27 for the 2025 Bommarito Automotive Group 500.

Rahal completed his two-lap qualifying run with a time of 51.5207 seconds and an average speed of 174.687 mph. His pace was considerably slower than pole-winner Will Power, who averaged 180.329 mph.

After the session, Rahal, who will record his 300th IndyCar race start on Sunday, spoke about how RLL was struggling to build cars that can go quickly on ovals.

"I'm a little baffled as to, you know, the speed. Sadly, I mean, it's nothing new to us on ovals and then, particularly, the last few years. We're just going to try more things this evening and see if we can make a better racecar," he said, via FrontStretch.

Graham Rahal emerged as the slowest qualifier for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing after suffering understeer in Turns 3 and 4. That caused him to lift his foot off the throttle and lose precious tenths. Teammates Devlin DeFrancesco and Louis Foster secured P17 and P21, respectively, with average speeds of 176.288 mph and 174.907 mph.

Rahal also struggled at the biggest oval in May, qualifying 30th on the grid for the 109th Indy 500. However, for him, not getting pushed into Last Chance qualifying and risking not qualifying like the two previous years was a matter of celebration. He started 28th after Team Penske's qualifying controversy and gained 11 positions in the chaotic race to finish in 17th place.

This year's race at WWTR will be under the lights. It will be IndyCar's first prime-time race on FOX, starting at 8 pm ET.

Graham Rahal shares the "disappointing part" of RLL's performance at WWTR

Graham Rahal drives his No. 15 Honda on day one of the Bommarito Automotive Group 500 race weekend - Source: Getty

Graham Rahal didn't have an impressive track record at the WWTR in IndyCar. The 19-year veteran has two P10 finishes as his best result at the 1.25-mile oval, the last of which came in 2022.

In 2024, Rahal qualified 14th on the grid. In the 260-lap race, he suffered a mechanical issue on lap 161, leading to a lowly P23 finish. He was expecting his performance to be better this year, but the lack of pace in his RLL challenger troubled him. He said in the aforementioned interview:

"I thought we were gonna be better than last year. I think we will be better than last year, 'cuz coming out of the Milwaukee test on Monday or Tuesday, we made the car considerably better than what we had there last year. So I had high hopes, let's put it that way. Again, like I said, the car is not doing anything evil. That's the disappointing part, it's just not that quick."

Graham Rahal has secured one Top 10 finish this season, with a P6 result at the Sonsio Grand Prix, the race he started on the front row. He has yet to record a Top 5 result since his P2 finish at the 2023 edition of the same race.