Graham Rahal's IMS confidence grows but says still in search of Alex Palou's weakness

The IMS road course has been one of the most successful tracks for Graham Rahal, and he will start the Sonsio IndyCar Grand Prix on the front row today. Despite his strong showing, the 36-year-old was unable to beat Alex Palou to the pole position and revealed how he is perplexed by the Spaniard's potential at the wheel of the IndyCar.

Rahal's start to the 2025 season was not great as he has not claimed even a single top-10 finish in the four races held so far. Though he has been Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing's lead driver, he was still quite a way far from becoming a threat to the top teams.

On the other hand, with the fifth round of the season lined up to take place at the IMS road course, the paddock anticipated a strong showing by him owing to his three podiums at the track. Come qualifying, he was able to stand on these expectations as he claimed a front row start for the race on Saturday.

However, Graham Rahal was on provisional pole position before Alex Palou snatched the spot away from him. Opening up on the Chip Ganassi Racing driver's stellar pace, Rahal said in the post-qualifying press conference:

"Huge deal for us to have three cars in the top five. Massive. For Honda to do what they did and just so many cars, so competitive. I'm excited for tomorrow."

"Obviously, Alex, I don't know what we have to do to beat him. I don't know if anybody does. We're going to give it our A effort. If there's one place I feel confident that we've run up front a lot, it's here. It would be nice to get over that hump and get a win for sure."

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Graham Rahal expected a good result during the qualifying for the Sonsio IndyCar Grand Prix

Graham Rahal at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway - Source: Getty

Though the 36-year-old continues his one-year-plus drought for pole positions, claiming a front row start is still a lot for the RLL squad. Moreover, the team's all three charters qualified inside the top-five, bringing more joy to Rahal.

Reflecting on it, how he had expected a great qualifying result from himself, Graham Rahal said (via IndyCar):

"What a lap. The balance was really consistent and matched my best of the whole day. It feels great for this entire team. We needed this. We expect to be good at Indy road course, but to see it come together and have three cars in the top five is amazing."

Rookie Louis Foster qualified P3 for the race this evening. On the other hand, Devlin DeFranceso starts fifth behind Scott McLaughlin as he was the slowest RLL driver during qualifying on Friday.