McDonald’s driver Graham Rahal, 20, made history in his previous race in St. Petersburg by becoming the youngest pole winner in IndyCar Series history on April 4. His teammate Robert Doornbos, 27, also ran well in his previous race but it was the A1GP event in Portugal last weekend (April 12), where he won the sprint race from a second place start. Both will be hoping to carry the momentum to the streets of Long Beach for Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing’s (NHLR) 26th consecutive event here.
In their 25 previous races here, NHLR has won six races, earned 11 poles and finished on the podium a total of 14 times with Mario and Michael Andretti, Nigel Mansell, Bruno Junqueira and Sebastien Bourdais, who won three of the past four races here. In contrast, eight of the 17 races on this year’s IndyCar Series schedule will mark only the second time for the team to compete at those venues. Although experience on a specific track is always an asset, both drivers are cautiously optimistic that the team’s 25 years of experience will come in handy on the 1.968-mile, 11-turn Long Beach course.
“The fact that the team has had so much success in Long Beach will really help us but at the same time a lot of these other guys have some experience at Long Beach and the teams know the track whether they raced here last year or haven’t in a few years so its not a huge, huge advantage,” said Rahal, who will make his third major open-wheel start at this track and fourth overall after competing here in the Atlantic Series. “I expect it to be more competitive than ever this year. It’s going to be a tough fought battle this weekend for sure.”
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“The fact that the team has had good results in Long Beach is a great confidence boost and that, in combination with a truly motivated Bobby D, and we should be up there again then!” added Doornbos, who hoped to follow-up his win in the A1GP sprint race in Portugal with a win from pole in the feature race but an electrical fire on the grid forced his retirement. “I found out that the Indy car is a different animal than the Panoz so the set-up we ran in Long Beach in the Champ Car won’t be close. Your driving style has to adjust to the car so the set-up does as well. We should be strong and I think it’s going to be competitive again but for sure we will work to get an NHLR car at the front…preferably both of us.”
In the 2008 Champ Car finale here last year, Justin Wilson brought the team its 11th pole here but engine failure on Lap 13 ended his bid to win a seventh race for the team at this track. Although Rahal qualified ninth he charged to the front with a competitive race car and pulled ahead of third place runner Franck Montagny in Turn 10 but Montagny’s right front tire hit Rahal’s left rear and sent him into a spin. A last-lap move after he battled back to seventh resulted in a 13th place finish. Despite the result Rahal knows the team can produce a competitive race car and he is confident he can start closer to the front after improving his performance in qualifying sessions.
“We had a pretty good race in Long Beach last year despite starting pretty far back,’ said Graham, who would like to be the first Rahal to win in Long Beach after numerous second place finishes by his father at this track. “We made up a lot of positions and I got past Montagny for third and then he hit me in the left rear and spun me out so it was kind of like this year’s St. Pete season-opener where it was a catch up game for us. Then I made a mistake on the last lap so I didn’t finish which was very disappointing after the progress we made. Overall it was a pretty good race for us – competition wise. Historically Long Beach has been one of my favorites. I’ve always had some success there during my weekends and I think that this year will be no different. In fact, I think this year should be our best year yet based on how competitive we were in St. Pete.”
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