INDIANAPOLIS — Graham Rahal could be upset for leading the most laps from the pole in Saturday’s Gallagher Grand Prix. He’s instead taking it in stride. Rahal, despite leading a race-high 36 laps finished runner-up by .4779-seconds in his No. 15 Dallara-Honda.

“For the whole team, as I’ve said numerous times, these guys have worked extremely, extremely hard to get here, to get this organization back on track,” Rahal said. “It’s great to see the fruits of their labor starting to show.

“Being able to go out there and challenge really hard today, I thought we did. You guys see it, not me, I thought what I could see gap-wise we did the best job on blacks by far of anybody today. I knew when Alex or Christian were behind me on blacks, they weren’t anywhere near our pace. I was able to hold Christian off on reds. The guys did a great job of giving me a car I could attack today.

“It’s a shame not to come away with a win, but that’s the way it goes.”

He said it was nice to have a refreshing, straight forward type of day. If not for a longer opening caution, the lone one of the day, and tire strategy, he had this race won. The field was covered as Rahal crossed the yard of bricks by over 8 seconds ahead of third place finisher Pato O’Ward.

“Aside from an eight-lap yellow that didn’t need to be eight laps, that may have had an effect on today. But the reality is that’s the way that these things go,” Rahal rued.

“I don’t know if Pato was thinking the same, the yellow, I asked the guy, I don’t know why we’re not going green. This doesn’t make any sense. I knew when Dixie pitted, I was like son of a… You give the guy an inch, he’s going to get a mile. He’s the best at saving fuel, going fast, doing the things he does.

“It was just that he didn’t have that set of reds that Dixon and others had since they were used in qualifying on Saturday. “

That’s why he went from starting on reds to running blacks the next two stints before the reds at the end. Scott Dixon started on primaries and by not making it out of the first round of qualifying on Friday, had an extra set of reds too.

“I was worried a little last night that we didn’t have three sets of reds to use,” he said. “We had a blister on the left front qualifying set. Not really sure why. It wasn’t a flat spot or anything. Unfortunately it made it so that set wasn’t usable for us today.

“I knew that the two middle stints on black, I was going to have to drive the wheels off of it just to maintain my gap. We were able to do that and actually pull a little bit more of a gap.

“Again, Dixie, through that middle stint, all the stints had reds, just blacks to reds, chasing down the best ever to do this, it’s not an easy thing (smiling).

“We got that last stint, and I knew we were going to have to make a lot of time. Catching him about 7/10ths a lap. Traffic came into play. It is what’s.”

Dixon was able to pit on Lap 5 under caution to top off on fuel and to go from the primaries to the reds and that proved to be his winning move as he went with the alternates the rest of the way.

Rahal hit pit road for the first time on Lap 24, then again on Lap 48. Dixon had the lead after and then hit pit road for his final time on Lap 58. Rahal pit for his final time on Lap 63.

The race between the two was now on.

On Lap 65, it was 6.6803-seconds between Dixon and Rahal. Three laps later, it was down to 4.5750-seconds. Two laps after that, it was 4.0527-seconds. It maintained there until it got down to 2.9094-seconds on Lap 75. Three laps later it was 1.8817-seconds. Four laps later down to .5076-seconds. Then down to .2689-seconds.

He was coming. Dixon had just enough to hold Rahal off as Rahal had to settle for his 33rd career podium.

“Yeah, I thought we did all right today. But that’s the way racing goes. At the end of the day we have nothing to be ashamed of. I thought we laid it all on the line, did a great job as an organization this weekend. To get a podium in a year like this obviously feels good. To get a win would have been better, but that’s the way this goes.”