Rahal shines with Indy GP rebound

Graham Rahal climbed from his car at the Indy Grand Prix and was promptly surrounded by reporters wanting to know how he defied the odds by motoring from 20th to sixth.

On a day where boredom occasionally set in at the front of the field, Rahal made sure fans had something follow as his No. 15 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Honda improved 14 spots under picturesque skies.

"We had a good solid day, passed a lot of guys and I feel good," Rahal (pictured) said as he was surrounded by almost a dozen journalists. "When you're starting 20th, you're crawling out from under it but it's good momentum got our guys heading into Monday."

Prior to the Indy GP, positivity had been in short supply for RLLR in 2017. Rahal's previous best, a 10th at Long Beach, was loaded with disappointment. Elsewhere, poor finishes from 13th to 21st meant Rahal's season was in jeopardy of being lost at an early stage of the championship.

Qualifying 20th in a field of 22 cars for the Indy GP only served to heighten Rahal's fears.

"We just had no straightline speed – compared to everybody," he said. "This isn't Honda, Chevy; it's me versus the rest. This morning [in warm-up] I was seven miles an hour slower....it makes no sense. In the cornering, we're fairly competitive but what I can see from the split reports from yesterday, we lost almost half a second on straightaways."

His race day performance – the one that drew so much attention – came from a surprising lack of modifications to the No. 15's chassis and aerodynamic setup.

"We didn't really change the car because I knew all along the car wasn't that bad," said Rahal, who used old fashioned race craft to climb through the pack. "That's why when I came in after qualifying and said to the guys, 'I don't have a second to pull out because I don't know where it is.' Then you look at the data and you know where it is."

Worn out from a busy day behind the wheel, and with a heavy heart after his grandfather died earlier in the week, Rahal can look forward to a bit of well-deserved rest before Indy 500 practice starts Monday afternoon.

"I'm gonna sleep good tonight, that's for sure," he said. "This is satisfying. We should have had a top five in Long Beach but got bitten there, so to just have a good smooth day... we all know what we're capable of as a team and we're capable of doing this each weekend. Finally, today, it was just the norm."