Following a disastrous Indianapolis 500 and Detroit Grand Prix for the Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing team, it rebounded at Road America with a seventh place for Christian Lundgaard.
Rahal then qualified on the front row at Mid-Ohio, with team-mate Lundgaard also making the Fast Six session.
After challenging poleman Colton Herta for the lead in the opening stint of the race, Rahal tumbled back to seventh after a refuelling hose issue in the first pitstop and a wheelgun failure in the second delayed him on each visit to the pits.
“We win as a team, we lose as a team,” Rahal told NBC Peacock. “It’s a reminder that we’ve got to be better in every phase of the program. I’m disappointed, that’s a fact. It’s going to sting to think about it over the next few weeks, but we’ve just got to improve in every aspect of the game.
“This has been a solid response from us as a team. Not only do we need to be better in qualifying and performance – and that includes myself – if you want to compete with [series dominator Alex] Palou and guys like that who are clicking in every aspect of the game, it takes a lot and we certainly have some things to do.”
Reflecting on his qualifying pace, Rahal added: “It's been a long time coming. To be honest with you, this is the first weekend I felt like I've had the car to where I can drive it the way I want to drive it, and it's rewarded me because finally – it's finally to the place I can charge the [corner] entries, I can do the things that I like to do with my style.”
Lundgaard finished fourth on Sunday, moving a place forward at Rahal’s expense.
“Just look at the people we are around on track,” he said. “We’re making progress and moving forward in the race. I think that shows the progression: Graham on the front row, me starting fifth, considering where we were here last year when none of our cars challenged for Q2, the RLL team is making progress.
“Last year we made progress at Toronto, that’s where we started moving forwards as a team. I’m pretty confident that we’ll be faster there this year.”
But Rahal admits that he has some concerns over next weekend’s street race in the Canadian city, given how poorly the car handled over the bumps in Detroit.
“Detroit was a major disappointment, which worries me a little for Toronto because I think there's still a lot of questions for us on our street course package,” he said. “But the road course package, you look at Indy GP, you look Road America, and you look here, and we've been competitive.
“Again, it's good to see that, good to feel the energy, feel the momentum.”
