Last weekend for the Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing camp was a frustrating one. What was highlighted by Graham Rahal’s pole on Saturday, ended with the team being on the wrong strategy as despite leading all the laps on his first stint, he’d come out of the first sequence outside the top five and would finish 12th in the end.

It was nothing against Rahal or his team. They played it safe and the tire strategy caught them out. The entire top five of the finishing order started the race on the Firestone primary tires. The entire top three of the starting lineup did the opposite.

It caught them out.

Despite 2 poles in 3 races now for Rahal, he has no wins to show for it. Strategy cost him both times.

For Christian Lundgaard, slower cars in front of him during his qualifying run in the opening round kept him from advancing. He had the speed as he was quickest in Friday’s practice. He was just held up and never got a clean lap. That relegated him to 17th at the start of Sunday’s race. He’d made up six spots to finish 11th.

Juri Vips had a great debut with a top 20 and pushing the 30 ride further up on the leaders circle board.

Now, they head to Laguna Seca this weekend to close out the season. How do they rebound?

“Having the rookie title go all the way to the season finale at Laguna Seca will always be a fond memory for me,” Lundgaard said. “The track has been resurfaced so I think everyone will come there with a new mindset of perhaps what we showed up at Road America with, setup wise. We were competitive there so we will likely also be at Laguna Seca. We know we have a strong road course car although it didn’t work out for us at Portland but we will see what we can do in Laguna. We want to stay at least eighth in the championship so that is the main target.”

Lundgaard finished fifth as a rookie last year. At Barber, he qualified sixth and finished there. At Road America he started 7th and finished there too. At Indy, he was on the pole and finished 4th then qualified 2nd and finished 4th again last month with Mid-Ohio coming from 5th to finish 4th.

Lundgaard has been a top 5 driver over the second half of the season. The second-year Danish driver had finished 14th or worse in 4 of the first 7 races. Now, 9 races later, Lundgaard not only has another pole and netting his first career race win (Toronto), but he also has scored 5 top 10 finishes including 3 of which in the top four at that.

His average finishing spot in the first 7 races?

12.42.

The last 9 races?

9.55.

Qualifying is a big part of that. He started 11th, 27th, 17th, 6th, 1st, 31st, 18th in those first 7 races. Over the next 10, it’s been 7th, 5th, 1st, 20th, 21st, 13th, 2nd, 20th, 17th.

He went from an average starting spot of 14.28 to 9.55.

Lundgaard’s worst results in this span are on ovals. The only four starts and finishes not in the top 10 over the last 10 races?

Iowa, Gateway and Portland.

Lundgaard has scored the fifth most points (300) on road and street courses this season trailing only Alex Palou (451) and Scott Dixon (351), Pato O’Ward (307) and Scott McLaughlin (302).

On ovals? He’s 20th with 62 points scored.

See the difference?

It’s ovals holding him back.

Graham Rahal is also making a nice resurgence too. He went from 0 poles in 105 races to 2 in the last 3.

Rahal had no top 5 finishes, 2 top 10’s and finishes of 12th or worse in 5 of the first 3 races including 3 finishes of 22nd or worse.

Since?

Average start of 11.33 and an average finish of 13.77.

Rahal was only 18th last year but was fourth the year prior. He qualified in Row 4 for the GMR Grand Prix and overcame being punted on Lap 1 for a top 10 and qualified on the front row in Mid-Ohio and finished seventh. He also won the pole and finished second in last month’s Gallagher Grand Prix too. On top of that, Rahal won the pole last week but strategy took him to 12th instead.

“I’m excited for Laguna. I think our road course pace as of recent should continue there,” said Rahal. “Obviously, the place has been completely resurfaced so it’s going to be quite different from what we’ve had there before. I would imagine tire degradation will be improved compared to what we’ve had in the past. It will also be interesting to see what tire we are running there and how that will play out. It’s good to go back.

“With it being the last race of the year, hopefully we can keep up our road course form as of late and be competitive and put a solid finish together in the iPacket car.”

Laguna Seca is a great place for Rahal all together.

Bobby Rahal captured his first major race win at Laguna Seca in the Can Am series in 1979 so it’s only fitting that the track has become the most successful for RLL overall as a team. After that Can Am win, Rahal went on to become the only driver to win four straight Indy car wins at the track from 1984-1987, the 1985 win coming from pole. A third place in 1992 brought him his fifth podium finish at the track.

In terms of Indy car history at Laguna Seca, in 22 races from 1983-2004, the most wins other drivers have is two (Danny Sullivan 1988, 1990), Michael Andretti (1991-92), Paul Tracy (1993-94), Bryan Herta with RLL (1998-99), Patrick Carpentier (2003-04).