Up And Down Season For Graham Rahal & RLL Racing

Graham Rahal at the NTT Indycar Series season opener at St. Petersburg (Photo by: INDYCAR/Penske Entertainment)

Graham Rahal has had an interesting start to the 2026 NTT Indycar Series season, and things seem to be looking up for the driver of the #15 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Honda more than people may think.

Nine races into the 2026 season, Graham Rahal has finished on the podium three times, all of them being third place finishes with those taking place at Birmingham, the Indianapolis GP, and the streets of Detroit. This season is the first time Rahal has stood on the podium since 2023, and the first time since the 2020 season having mutiple podium finishes in a season.

Graham Rahal currently has three podiums, five top 10s, and is sitting 11th in the standings. This is the highest Rahal has been in the point standings since the 2021 season where he went on to finish 7th in the standings.

Prior to the start of the season, Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing made significant changes to the team during the off season. The team brought in new leadership, a restructured pit crew and even changes to the teams driver lineup.

Jay Frye, former Indycar President joined the team as the Special advisor / President and Brian Barnhart was hired as the Vice President of Operations. Barnhart also joined the team as Graham Rahal's race strategist. Changes on the pit crew side of the team had RLL bring in Kyle Sagan as the Pit Stop Manager, helping the team with having more consistent pit stops. Both Barnhardt and Sagan had left Arrow McLaren after the 2025 season to join RLL for the 2026 season. With the revised driver lineup, RLL re-signed Louis Foster and brought in former F1 driver Mick Schumacher, replacing Devlin DeFrancesco.

Rahal's last win came in 2017 when he achieved the weekend sweep in Belle Isle winning both races that weekend, and the last time Rahal has qualified on the pole was back in the 2023 season at the Indianpolis GP and the Grand Prix of Portland.

There is still plenty of racing to go this season, and with Graham Rahal already matching his best run of podium finishes in six years, expect to see Rahal contend for more podiums for the remainder of the season, and potentially pole positions and even race wins.