AllRacing

Rahal, RLL buoyed by strongest run of the season

Graham Rahal shot from 22nd to fourth at the BitNile.com Grand Prix of Portland to earn his best finish of the season and the top result of 2025 for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing.

Rahal’s speedy Sunday drive was the remedy for all that was missing in qualifying, and thanks to a smart strategy call that brought him to pit lane during the first caution as most of the field stayed out, the No. 15 Honda was ready to jump forward during the next caution and spend the rest of the 110-lap contest fighting in the lead group.

Improving 18 positions and coming within one spot of reaching the podium was the obvious highlight of Rahal’s day, but after the race, he was more enthused for RLL and the array of pit crew members and engineers who produced a car that was capable of running right behind the best from Team Penske, Arrow McLaren and Chip Ganassi Racing.

“This is nice to have good strategy, but great pace, too,” Rahal told RACER. “When we to needed over-cut (Penske’s Josef) Newgarden, we did successfully, and when we needed to go, we were able to go. It was a great feeling, but I don’t care about this for me. Our guys have been working awfully hard for this. Everybody around here knows that, and it was just nice to be able to execute. We made the right strategy calls and when we got with the lead group, we were able to beat a lot of them on their own game and get great pit stops to be able to leap forward. Total team performance, so I’ll certainly take it.”

For Rahal, the savvy and execution of strategy was as encouraging as his outright pace. Chris Jones/IMS

Rahal hoped the front-running day in Oregon will boost everyone’s confidence as the season winds down to a conclusion in Milwaukee and Nashville. Thanks to the fourth-place finish, Rahal improved to 15th in the championship in one of RLL’s tougher years and could flirt with a run inside the top 12 if the final ovals end with positive results.

“For these guys in particular, the mental side of this, and the relief that comes with something like this is huge, because we’ve had places like Road America, where we start up front and we totally fail with strategy,” he said. “And we’ve had places like Detroit – qualified up front, running up front, have this wheel nut issue. So this just validates the improvement and the position that we’ve been in several times in the year. It was nice to complete the task.

“And for them, it’s even nicer than for me. The whole time I was thinking for our guys, ‘Man, they need a breath of fresh air.’ And that’s what we got. We’ve still got two more races to go. Our Achilles heel has been short ovals, so we’ll see how it goes. But hopefully we can have a good, strong last couple of races to put this year to bed.”