Rahal Letterman Lanigan have endured a surprisingly poor year so far, after expanding to three full-time entries for 2022. Until today, a pair of seventh places by Rahal had been RLL’s strongest results, with rookie Christian Lundgaard having scored a best of ninth place in the rain of GP Indy, and Jack Harvey’s best being a couple of 13ths.
While Harvey was again stymied in Toronto, this time by two bad pitstops, Rahal and Lundgaard had their best results so far this year with fourth and eighth, and the team’s performance as a whole took a notable leap.
This wasn’t shown in qualifying, where Rahal, like Will Power and Simon Pagenaud, was robbed of the chance to lay down a fast lap in the already disrupted Q1 Group 2 session by the spinning Kyle Kirkwood bringing out a red flag.
Yet from 14th on the grid, highest-placed of the drivers to choose primary tires, Rahal took the risk of losing out from a caution period bunching the field together, by running a long opening stint, getting into the lead and taking advantage of running in clean air. That proved to be the foundation of his best result since Laguna Seca last September, because when the early stoppers made their second pit visits, he was through into a legitimate ninth and then gained four places when most runners pitted simultaneously at half-distance under caution.
Following the final restart on Lap 66 of the 85-lap race, Rahal dived up the inside of Team Penske-Chevrolet driver Scott McLaughlin to claim fourth and then successfully defended from championship leader Marcus Ericsson of Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda all the way to the checkered flag.
“Strategy-wise, nothing was given to us,” said Rahal. “We ran really long on the first stint and we were the fastest car on track, and the yellow kind of hurt us a little. But the guys did an unbelievable job in the pits – we were plus-four in that stop, so congrats to them.
“From an engineering and team standpoint, for us to stay positive it's been hard. A lot of people doubt us, a lot of people think I can't drive – we know differently. But people do think that. We've just put our heads down.
“This is a good kickstart to the rest of the year with HyVee [one of the team’s principal sponsors, and sponsor of the upcoming double-header at Iowa Speedway] and everything next week. We hope we can have another great weekend.”
Rahal believes a recent test at the bumpy Sebring course was very beneficial for the team’s street course setups, and he was gratified by the gains made on a weekend in which he looked certain to graduate to the Firestone Fast Six in qualifying, had he gotten a legitimate shot in Q1.
"Others are continuing to develop too, so for us to try and close that gap from as far back as we were mid-season, it's really, really hard,” he observed. “It's not something traditionally that you can do but we had a great test in Sebring and Iowa. A lot of different aspects add up, and we're still deficient in some areas, but today was a great step in the right direction.
"I'm really proud of the guys. A lot of people have been beating their heads against the wall this year. And it's tough on our sponsors, United Rentals and all of 'em, but thanks so much to them for sticking with us."
Lundgaard, who started 10th, was downbeat about his eighth place finish, saying: “It was a tough, long race that didn’t pan out in anyone’s favor except the early stoppers and the guys that did a middle stint on reds. We went long on the first stint on reds and came out behind the guys that pitted early that undercut us. And then a yellow came out and the guys ahead could have a free stop, so I think we were unlucky with most of it.
“I think we struggled a bit with [tire] degradation: we didn’t have the power-down [traction] we needed to get further forward so it’s something we need to look at. But it’s a good starting point for Nashville [the next and last street course on the 2022 schedule].”
