That brutal final-lap clash at Road America on June 21 tells the entire story of Graham Rahal’s rocky NTT IndyCar SERIES campaign. Racing hard in the XPEL Grand Prix, Rahal had just muscled past Will Power for third place through Turn 6, only for Power’s trailing machine to make contact as they approached Turn 12. The heavy impact fired Rahal straight into the outside barrier, bouncing him helplessly into the gravel trap.
Instead of standing tall as the highest-finishing Honda driver, he was left with a crushing 23rd-place result. “Two corners away from (a podium finish),” Rahal recalled with a sigh at the season-ending event at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca.
I’m very decided to (2027) already to try to make sure we’re making the right moves, doing the right things,
Throughout the 18-race calendar, the driver of Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing’s No. 15 Honda experienced a brutal cycle of feast and famine. He secured three podium finishes, yet those brilliant moments were completely swallowed up by six finishes deep in the 20s. Without that late-race shove from Power at Road America, Rahal would have matched Team Penske’s Scott McLaughlin on the podium tally. As it stood, series champion Alex Palou of Chip Ganassi Racing and Arrow McLaren’s Christian Lundgaard topped the charts with seven podiums apiece, followed by Andretti Global’s Kyle Kirkwood and Team Penske’s David Malukas with six each, and Andretti Global’s Power with five.
Rahal’s podium visits came thick and fast at the Children’s of Alabama Indy Grand Prix at Barber Motorsports Park, the Sonsio Grand Prix on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course, and the Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix. Early speed was evident elsewhere too, like a strong third-place qualifying effort turned into a ninth-place finish in the Good Ranchers 250 at Phoenix Raceway. On the street circuits, he qualified and finished ninth in the Ontario Honda Dealers Indy at Markham, Ontario, alongside leading a season-high 12 laps during the Freedom 250 Grand Prix of Washington, D.C.
Yet these flashes of genuine speed couldn't save a campaign that ultimately slumped to 16th in the championship standings. “So, while people want to discount us, I don't think that that's necessarily fair on a year like this year,” Rahal reflected. “We had a lot of good opportunities, but what our weakness was on one weekend we'd be on the podium, the next weekend we'd finish 23rd. Our highs were high, our lows were very, very low, and that's the frustration for me.”
That maddening inconsistency reared its head again during the August weekend at the OnlyBulls Grand Prix at Portland. After pulling off an eighth-place qualifying effort that left him pleasantly surprised—noting that the position was “way better than I thought I was going to qualify”—he slipped backward to finish a lap down in 23rd place. “So, things like that (were) quite frustrating,” he admitted.
By the time the paddock rolled into WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca for the season-ending Mission Foods Grand Prix of Monterey, the six-time race winner was already entirely fixed on the future. The team's short oval package sits squarely at the top of their homework list following a difficult second half of the year at Nashville Superspeedway and the Milwaukee Mile. Team adjustments are already underway as well, with Rahal noting that Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing will scale back to a two-car full-season lineup for himself and Louis Foster.
“I’m very decided to (2027) already to try to make sure we’re making the right moves, doing the right things,” Rahal said. “We’ve tried to keep up this three-car thing for many years, often at the great expense of our team owners. Just need to reset and rethink. It’s a very important time of the year to make sure that we're doing the right things.”
