Graham Rahal's wife Courtney Force suffers "mom fail" as daughter gets upset at Indy 500 draft

Graham Rahal's wife, Courtney Force, shared a glimpse of what happened during the 2025 Indy 500 qualifying draft on Saturday. IndyCar held the draft on Friday to determine the order in which the drivers will put their qualifying laps on Saturday.

Thirty-four specially created tokens in boxes were placed on a table, and representatives for each driver picked one at random. Graham Rahal's four-year-old daughter, Harlan, did the honor for her dad. Her mom, Courtney Force, a former NHRA driver, accompanied Harlan to the stage, with her two-year-old daughter, Tinley, in her arms.

Harlan was excited about the draft but didn't immediately show the chosen number to the host and the people in attendance. Consequently, her mom took the token from her hand and showed the chosen No. 10 to everyone. Harlan's face instantly went sour.

On Saturday, Force reshared an Instagram story by Kathi Lauterbach, Vice President of Communication for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, who captured Harlan's disappointed face at that moment. Force shared her side of the story, writing:

"I swear she was happy about picking #10. She was just mad at me for showing the cameras, cuz she's a big girl and wanted to do it. Oops. Mom fail."

A snapshot of Courtney Force's Instagram story | Image via Instagram story (@courtneyforce)

After his first run of qualifying in Round 1 on Saturday, Graham Rahal was disappointed with his No. 15 Honda. The RLL driver struggled throughout his first four-lap run and could only manage an average speed of 228.686 mph. He was the first driver to have an average speed below 230 mph.

Graham Rahal's frustrated message after first Indy 500 qualifying run

Graham Rahal at Indy 500 Open Testing - Indianapolis - Source: Getty

Graham Rahal has struggled throughout the week, right from practice session one on Tuesday to the first Indy 500 qualifying session on Saturday. Even on Fast Friday, with the qualifying boost, he wasn't able to touch the four-lap average of 230 mph.

In practice 6 before the qualifying session, he registered 228.753 mph, finishing 22 out of 23 in the session. Rahal's first run in qualifying was slower than that time with a 228.686 mph average. On the in-lap, he expressed his frustration about the car's balance on the team radio, saying:

"This car has no grip, just has absolutely nothing. You can see it. I mean, I'm struggling like hell. The car is all over the place."

Both of Rahal's teammates, Louis Foster and Devlin Francesco, were quicker than him with four-lap averages of 230.566 mph and 230.415 mph. In a press conference on Friday, he had expressed how he was struggling to get the car's balance right. Despite copying his teammate's setup, the experienced American driver found no solution to improve his car's performance on Saturday.