Graham Rahal Snaps Six-Year Dry Spell with IndyCar Pole at Indianapolis

It can be argued that Graham Rahal has been cursed ever since posting the greatest weekend of his NTT IndyCar Series career at Belle Isle in Detroit back in 2017.

That June 3-4, 2017 weekend, Rahal won a pole and both ends of the Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix doubleheader. He was on top of the IndyCar world.

He hasn't won a pole or a race since.

Check that. At least one streak is now history, as Rahal on Friday won the pole for the Gallagher Grand Prix on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course. The pole not only ends a more than six-year pole drought, it came at IMS—a place Rahal failed to qualify for this year's Indianapolis 500.

Rahal's winning time for his fourth career IndyCar pole and first in 104 races was 1 minute, 10.1132 seconds. It proved to be the front half of a 1-2 sweep for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, as teammate Christian Lundgaard qualified second on on Friday at 1:10.2286.

"You move on from May as best you can," Rahal said. "There's a lot of frequent reminders what happened there, not only in qualifying, but the car not running at the start of the race, things like that.

"Those are things that build character. I haven't told many people this, but when I got back to my phone after May, after qualifying, the very first voice mail I had was from Al Unser Jr. Guys like that, you see somebody like him who's been here, who's won here, but he's also seen the lows of the low. The best have went through it.

"I definitely seeing his name on my phone lifted my spirits a lot. You come back here, this is a totally different rodeo, but it still means a lot. To be able to run up front, as our team, too, Christian right next to me, Jack just missing out on Q3. We've been strong here on the road course. It's nice that it's me, not the roles reversed. Hopefully we can translate that into a heck of a good day tomorrow."

The 1-2 for RLL was that team's first front such qualifying result since April 2019 at Barber Motorsports Park, when Takuma Sato won the pole and Rahal started second.

“I’m looking forward to seeing what we can do tomorrow,” Toronto race winner Lundgaard said. “The team is strong. I certainly think we can do something great tomorrow. We’ve got two opportunities on splitting strategy and seeing what works best. I’m definitely hungry for another win, but at this point, I’m really happy for Graham to get his pole.”

Alexander Rossi qualified third in the No. 7 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet at 1:10.2932, tying his season best set on the oval at Texas. Teammate Pato O’Ward was fourth at 1:10.3453 in the No. 5 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet.

IndyCar Gallagher Grand Prix

Qualifying Results

Qualifying Friday for the Gallagher Grand Prix NTT IndyCar Series event on the 2.439-mile Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course, with qualifying position, car number in parentheses, driver, engine, time and speed in parentheses:

1. (15) Graham Rahal, Honda, 01:10.1132 (125.232 mph)
2. (45) Christian Lundgaard, Honda, 01:10.2286 (125.026)
3. (7) Alexander Rossi, Chevrolet, 01:10.2932 (124.911)
4. (5) Pato O'Ward, Chevrolet, 01:10.3453 (124.819)
5. (29) Devlin DeFrancesco, Honda, 01:10.3938 (124.733)
6. (28) Romain Grosjean, Honda, 01:10.4021 (124.718)
7. (11) Marcus Armstrong, Honda, 01:10.2106 (125.058)
8. (30) Jack Harvey, Honda, 01:10.2228 (125.036)
9. (10) Alex Palou, Honda, 01:10.2974 (124.904)
10. (6) Felix Rosenqvist, Chevrolet, 01:10.4389 (124.653)
11. (3) Scott McLaughlin, Chevrolet, 01:10.4782 (124.583)
12. (06) Helio Castroneves, Honda, 01:10.5207 (124.508)
13. (26) Colton Herta, Honda, 01:10.4398 (124.651)
14. (60) Linus Lundqvist, Honda, 01:10.4570 (124.621)
15. (27) Kyle Kirkwood, Honda, 01:10.4869 (124.568)
16. (9) Scott Dixon, Honda, 01:10.5006 (124.544)
17. (12) Will Power, Chevrolet, 01:10.5237 (124.503)
18. (8) Marcus Ericsson, Honda, 01:10.6348 (124.307)
19. (2) Josef Newgarden, Chevrolet, 01:10.6150 (124.342)
20. (21) Rinus VeeKay, Chevrolet, 01:10.7249 (124.149)
21. (14) Santino Ferrucci, Chevrolet, 01:10.6461 (124.287)
22. (20) Ryan Hunter-Reay, Chevrolet, 01:11.0083 (123.653)
23. (18) David Malukas, Honda, 01:10.8687 (123.897)
24. (78) Agustin Canapino, Chevrolet, 01:11.0611 (123.561)
25. (51) Sting Ray Robb, Honda, 01:11.5658 (122.690)
26. (77) Callum Ilott, Chevrolet, 01:11.1027 (123.489)
27. (55) Benjamin Pedersen, Chevrolet, 01:11.2971 (123.152)