AUSTIN, TX – It took nearly the entire opening test day at the Circuit of the Americas on Tuesday for Graham Rahal to finally find the speed in his No. 15 Honda that he was searching for. In his 41st lap around the 3.41-mile Texas road course, the Ohio native found his groove.

Rahal, circled the 20 turn facility with a lap of 1:48.3410-seconds in the second and final session of the afternoon. That was good enough for the eighth fastest lap on the day. In what started off as a tough day, his team really rebounded, giving them confidence for Wednesday’s session.

“It was a tough day for our United Rentals team,” said Rahal. “But in the end, we found some really good stuff and ended up eighth in practice, and we used one less set of tires than most guys. We finally found something. I’m definitely excited about those last few runs. We found a really good direction, so I’ll pass it off to my teammate (Takuma) Sato, and tomorrow, hopefully, we’ll both have a better day.”

Rahal, was only 19th of the 24 drivers that made at least one lap in the first session. His teammate Takuma Sato was 22nd. Rahal’s top lap in the first session was 1:50.9911-seconds. To pick up over two seconds by the end of the day was noticeable.

This is exactly the kind of hardwork that this team has thrived upon. Granted, speed isn’t the end all be all in a preseason open test, let alone at a track where most of the drivers have never raced on before, but it’s good to find it early.