Home hero Graham Rahal distraught as IndyCar Mid-Ohio qualifying falls flat: "Couldn't be more frustrated"

Rahal Letterman Lanigan (RLL) racing driver, Graham Rahal, cut out an extremely frustrated figure post his Mid-Ohio qualifying disaster. The veteran driver was knocked out in Round 1, as his best time of 1:05.6728 was not good enough to make it into Round 2.

Graham Rahal was in Group 2 for the first round of the Mid-Ohio qualifying session. Alongside him, other drivers like Robert Shwartzman, Rinus Veekay, Callum Ilott, Will Power, Jose Newgarden, Felix Rosenqvist, and David Malukas were also not able to make it into the next round.

In line with this forgettable outing in front of the home fans, Rahal has come up with the following update via his X account:

"Completely hacked up that session. Couldn’t be more frustrated as we 100% had the pace to advance, up over 2 tenths on my best lap and couldn’t complete it. Frustrated, but tomorrow I’ll be on a mission w/ a lot of good guys."

Graham Rahal's RLL teammate Devlin DeFrancesco was also knocked out in Round 1 while competing in Group 1. However, amid their struggles, their young teammate, Louis Foster, was able to put his car in the Fast 6. The 21-year-old did a brilliant job to ultimately secure a P6 starting position for tomorrow's 2025 Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio.

The 36-year-old Rahal, on the other hand, will start his outing in his #15 racecar from P20, behind Juncos Hollinger Racing's Sting Ray Robb and two-time IndyCar champion, Josef Newgarden.

Graham Rahal had an 'average' outing in Round 9 of the 2025 IndyCar season

While Graham Rahal is not at all pleased with his qualifying exploits at Mid-Ohio, he also did not have the best of outings in Round 9, the XPEL Grand Prix at Road America. He secured an "average" P20 finish in the 55-lap race.

This came across as a major disappointment for the veteran driver because he started the Road America Grand Prix from a strong position of P6, only to fall backward in the chaotic race.

"It wasn’t a great race for us. It was average. All of the yellows really affected us at the start because we needed that stint to go long on the new primary tires. Instead, we had to do long stints on both of the used alternates and then on the new alternates, which was okay but you were doing such crazy fuel saving that you weren’t able to maximize the grip of the reds," said Rahal after the race (via Rahal.com)

After the first nine rounds of the 2025 IndyCar season, Graham Rahal is in 18th place in the drivers' standings with 133 points. He is equal on points with the Juncos Hollinger Racing driver, Conor Daly.