Rahal enjoying step forward in 2026

Graham Rahal is off to a strong start in his 20th IndyCar Season.

After six races in 2025, the Ohioan sat 13th in the Drivers’ standings with a best finish of sixth, and through six races in 2026, Rahal’s earned a pair of podiums and holds eighth in the championship on approach to the Indianapolis 500.

His Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing team is also starting to make inroads with their quest to compete with the title contenders. There’s plenty of improvements left to make, but seeing Rahal’s young teammate Louis Foster record his best result of his career with a run to seventh gave rise to the belief that RLL is moving in the right direction. Rookie Mick Schumacher also shined, holding 12th until late-race contact with a rival drew a drive-through penalty from the series.

“That was physical. I’m proud of this team,” Rahal said. “Everybody has worked awfully hard to get on track and to have two podiums this early in the year feels amazing as does doing this for Fifth Third Bank and all of our partners. We’ve just got to carry this momentum into the Indy 500 for sure. It was good to see Louis get his best series finish and Mick have a strong race. We're making strides; that’s all I can say. We're not there yet, but we're making strides and we'll get there.”

Foster welcomed the result, but as someone who has high expectations, he wasn’t overjoyed.

“It was a good race,” he said. “I’m obviously super happy to be in the top 10. I hate that that's my best finish, because of course I’d like it to be higher to be honest. I think got a little bit unfortunate and fortunate on the start not to get hit, but unfortunately had to go off course and lose 10 or so spots.

“We battled back and the team did a really good job on the strategy and also on the setup, The car was really, really strong in the race. We made the red tires last, which we haven't been able to do previously. We had a few battles out there as well, which was quite a lot of fun. And we made quite a few passes today so generally I'm happy about that. I think there was more on the cards for us today a little bit. I think we probably could have been up there close with Graham, had a few other things gone our way, but at the end of the day, I’m happy with the result.”