INDIANAPOLIS — This past May was a massive win for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing. While they didn’t win the race, they won the pole, had all three cars rolling off in the top 4 Rows and if not for Graham Rahal being punted on the opening lap, likely would have had two cars in the top five at the end.

Christian Lundgaard was second in both practice sessions that weekend, qualified on the pole and finished fourth.

Despite saying on Friday of that race weekend that if he didn’t win, that he’d be disappointed, Lundgaard took a more mature approach after scoring his third career top five finish that day. He said that it was a relief that the race was actually over because the car was just too tough to drive on Saturday.

“Right now I’m satisfied,” he said. “It just wasn’t as quick today. There was a point of this race where I thought we weren’t going to finish at the top 10 with our balance. To end up with a top five is a win right now. And I think we need to look at the perspective of how our great performance wise and the positives to take from this weekend.”

Lundgaard started on the Firestone primary tires, just as the pole winner typically does here. It’s the safe play. With this track typically being a Firestone alternate race, he could go all out the rest of the way. Unfortunately, that just wasn’t the case for how his car was handling.

“Yeah, I mean, it was strange because that way that the reds were falling off,” he continued. “So I didn’t really understand how we got to balance so so wrong. But again, it’s things we need to learn from now. Of course, that’s not one of the best things and we’re not in the past. So these are the things that we need to learn.

“I don’t think we got it right today. I don’t think that call was the setup of the car was optimal for today’s race conditions and the tires. But again, it’s great points for us. I mean, I would rather be happy, be happy to say now we finished fourth.”

Lundgaard says that he gave it a little more than he had to, but the balance was the culprit to what not only kept him out of victory lane, but the podium too.

“I think we struggled a lot with balance today the car was from one one run to another run. It was a different balance. So it’s very, very difficult to to just understand the car. There was a point to where I didn’t really think I was gonna make it through just on balance that the car was so difficult to drive, but it’s here we’re in the top five. So that’s the positive nature of the race.”

He just didn’t have the balance and the right tire strategy to come out ahead. What did they learn though from that weekend to bring back and does it apply?

“We have learned a lot of things since we raced on the road course at IMS in May and it’s a continuous learning curve of course,” Lundgaard said this week. “I do think we’ll be competitive. It’s one of our strongest tracks and I think we’ve shown that as a team having had two cars in the Fast Six and having Graham qualifying eighth as well. I think we were the only team that had three cars in the top eight.

“We were competitive there and this gives us a chance to improve and make up for our mistakes in May. We weren’t on top of our strategy decisions and a lot has been learned since then. For sure the condensed weekend makes it more challenging but luckily this is one of the weekends and tracks where we know we will be competitive so we can be bold and experiment with other things and not necessarily worry about it for qualifying if it doesn’t work out in practice.

“It’s an interesting weekend and in the back of everyone’s minds that there will be NASCAR rubber on the track as well. Luckily, I don’t think it’s something that hurts us as a team. It will be hotter but, at the same time, looking at the statistics, the second Indy GP is the strongest one for the team the past two years and we’re going in off a pole from May so I don’t see a reason why we shouldn’t be competitive this weekend.”

Lundgaard has been stellar on natural road courses. He qualified sixth and finished there in Barber. He qualified seventh and finished there in Road America. He started 5th and finished 4th in Mid-Ohio. He finished runner-up here last July.  He’s also qualified 4th, 8th, 6th and 1st respectively.

Then you have his teammate Graham Rahal. What a story it would be to miss the Indy 500 then to come back with this team and win at least on the road course.

“I think we’re finally starting to make changes with the car, as I just said, that they’re responding the right way, the way you’d expect them to, and it’s nice. It’s nice to feel that,” Rahal said last month.

Rahal has 12 top 10’s in his last 13 tries too and has finished worse than 7th just once here since 2020 (8 races). He started on the front row in Mid-Ohio.

This is also Jack Harvey’s best track with 4 top 8’s including a podium and a fourth-place start in May.

“I’m excited to get back to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course,” he said. “It’s a track that I’ve always ran well and qualified well at, and on the whole, raced well at. We showed a lot of potential and promise at the race earlier this year in May so if we can iron out just a couple of these bits, trying to go out and get a top-10 and battle for the podium is what our expectation and target should be for the weekend. I’m excited to get back to a track that I’ve gone well at and just keep trucking away.”

Now that they’ve tasted a win in Toronto, can they win again in Indy? Lundgaard felt before Toronto, that this would be his best shot at picking up his first career win at.

“Luckily, we have another Indy GP later this year, in August, and we’ve been competitive there. I had my first podium, had my first pole there, so I might as well get my first win at the speedway,” Lundgaard said a few days prior to his Toronto win. “I really do think that we have that opportunity at that race. We just need to nail it during that weekend.”

Rahal will make his 15th INDYCAR start on the road course at IMS. After a second-place finish on the road course at IMS in 2015 and 2020, Graham finished fifth and seventh on the IMS road course in 2021 in May and August.

Last year in May, he started 12th and ran as high as sixth but the gamble for rain tires during ever-changing weather conditions challenged the field, including Rahal and Rossi initially, and others later. Slick track conditions and near zero visibility led to him running into the back of Kirkwood, which drew a penalty and a trip to the back of the field in 19th. He ultimately took the checkered flag in 16th place when the race went to the timed length after 75 of the planned 85 laps. In July, he started 17th and gained three spots at the start for P14 and by Lap 2 he was 11th.  He held the position through the FCC for Kellett.

He was 11th when he made his first of three stops, ninth when he made his second and seventh when he made his final stop, which he held until the checkered flag. He utilized the same black/red/red tire strategy the majority of the field ran. 

Earlier this year, Rahal battled from the back after opening lap contact from Kyle Kirkwood to finish 10th. Sixth place starter Kirkwood made contact with Rahal, who had pulled ahead in the first few turns of the opening lap. It sent him into other cars, and he ultimately had to pit to replace a right rear, punctured tire. A caution came out after that for two other cars, and he pit to top off before the race returned to green. He climbed into the lead for seven laps at one point and ultimately finished 10th to salvage his race. He is hoping for another strong event on the IMS road course for the team.

“I’m really pumped to get back to IMS for the Gallagher Grand Prix,” Rahal said. “I thought in May that we were really strong as a team, and we need to make sure we can kick off on the right foot again and that we’re doing the right things to make sure we’re competitive. Obviously, it’s not a given. Yes, we were good in May, but we need to make sure that it carries over into August which, in year’s past we kind of struggled to get that to transition to the hotter month. But hopefully we can do it and have a really good weekend.

“It’s a crazy schedule over the two days with everything happening in one day on Friday except for the race but I think we’re up to the task. As a team, we’ve put on a good performance before. I don’t see that changing so hopefully we can do well. The conditions are similar (to May), but the heat will be the biggest change and we don’t know whether it will be dry, wet or just how hot it will be. It’s important for us to have a really good event. We’re closing in on the end of the season and we’d like to finish on a good note. We haven’t had a podium on the 15 car so we’d like to make that happen. Let’s see how it all plays out.”