Why the jigsaw is coming together at RLL

Fast cars on Saturdays tend to make life easier on Sundays. For the Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing IndyCar Series team, the pursuit of improved single-lap performance in qualifying has been an area of great investment in 2025, and so far, their efforts have been a success.

The three-car program entered the most recent race at Laguna Seca joint third on the list with eight appearances in the Firestone Fast Six, behind Andretti Global (13), Chip Ganassi Racing (10), and tied with Arrow McLaren and Team Penske.

Team veteran Graham Rahal has been the most frequent visitor to the Fast Six with his No. 15 Honda (4), followed closely by rookie Louis Foster in the No. 45 Honda (3) and young veteran Devlin DeFrancesco in the No. 30 Honda (1) has also contributed to the eight appearances in the IndyCar’s final round of knockout road and street course qualifying.

As the lone carryover from 2024, Rahal has been the best example of RLL’s increased qualifying capabilities; the four Fast Six runs this year contrast a single visit at Portland — site of this weekend’s race — from 12 months ago. Despite being new to the series and team, 2024 Indy NXT champion Foster has also made an impression with his three Fast Sixes; he’s replaced Christian Lundgaard who earned four Fast Six starting spots last season in the same car before leaving to join Arrow McLaren.

Converting the strong starts into stronger finishing positions has been the challenge for RLL, but the potential to achieve more on Sundays is within the team’s grasp thanks to the gains made within the expanded engineering group.

“We came into this year knowing that we struggled in a lot of areas, and we put a lot of effort into strengthening some core engineering areas,” RLL team manager Grant Weaver told RACER. 

"We brought in Yves Touron to help on Graham's car, move some things around. Todd Malloy's been here for a while, and Todd has helped work with the engineering department to grow its strength. We've hired a bunch of young engineers to help and tried to move other people up and move other people into different positions to get the best out of what we have.

“There's not one single silver bullet we could say ‘This is what did it.’ But it's a lot of effort from David Cripps in the R&D group, working on aero, working on mechanical, working on making all the parts of a 15-year-old race car work a little bit better. And then the guys down on the floor, we definitely can't overlook their contribution, bolting together cars that can be fast when we've got the right setup. Everybody trying to pull together toward a common goal.

“And you know, our qualifying has definitely improved this year over previous. It's on Sunday. We're still trying to find what's going to be best to get us to the front when the checkered flag falls. Sunday is payday, and we're working hard to try to make things happen.”

With Weaver, who brings 25 years of leadership experience from Chip Ganassi Racing, joining RLL during the offseason, the shifting of Malloy to oversee the IndyCar engineering department, the elevation of veteran crew chief Derek Davidson to senior management, and the signing of former IndyCar president Jay Frye in February to run RLL, there’s been plenty of change going on throughout the building.

Creating the right chemistry within the blended staff is where Weaver and the rest of his teammates are making the greatest strides.

“When you're in the trenches doing that, it seems extremely difficult and frustrating at times, but we try to keep it positive every day by sending out some type of positive words on teams and team building,” he said.

“You can add star players, but if they don’t have teammates that want to work with them him, you can't make a team. So it's us trying to dig deep and work as a team, three different cars and teams, but having them work together, collaborate.

“When I was at Ganassi, having the engineering all at one table, so everybody's talking, everybody knows what's going on, is important so all the cars know what’s going on with each other and can improve together. They’re all part of the jigsaw puzzle together. So now it's squeezing the grapes so that we make the best wine.”