The 33-year-old has been an Indy racing regular since 2007, the final season of Champ Car before its unification with the Indy Racing League, and won six races in that time – all but one for the RLL outfit that he joined in 2013.
His best season with the team to date came in 2015, when Rahal scored two wins to finish fourth in the championship despite running a solo car.
Rahal hasn’t won a race since 2017, but has been a fixture in the top 10 in the drivers’ standings, finishing seventh in 2021 with a best finish of third at Texas.
Speaking prior to the 2022 season that gets underway in St. Petersburg this weekend, Rahal acknowledged that he was “getting closer to the end” of his career and that discussions had been held about the future of the team co-owned by his father, three-time IndyCar champion Bobby Rahal, David Letterman and Mike Lanigan.
RLL has built a new headquarters in Zionsville, Indiana, and Rahal said this investment had been the prompt for future discussions. The team’s last win came at the 2020 Indianapolis 500 with Takuma Sato.
“I’m getting closer to the end, I think we all know that,” Rahal said.
“In the position I’m at in my career now, I would say I’m definitely focused on winning more than ever before. I’m focused on being a good team-mate.
“I’m also focused on helping build this team. It never really was my mindset that someday I would be a team owner, but the minute that building was built, I got a phone call from Mike and my dad.
“It was very clear that the expectation is that I’m going to assume that role with Pat Lanigan.
Graham Rahal, Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
Photo by: IndyCar Series
“I’m focused on how we get the team to the next level as well. There’s a lot to think about, to go through, but definitely [I’ll have] more of a senior role.
“I’ve got to kind of be the guy now to try to lead the charge a little bit.
“When you’re younger you don’t really think about those things, certainly when I was just focused on me, my car, my team.
“I’ll be quite selfish when I say we really want the #15 car to be winning all the time. At the same time, it’s important that we get this team headed on down the right path as I creep up in age here a little bit.”
RLL has become a three-car IndyCar operation for 2022, with Jack Harvey and Christian Lundgaard joining to replace the Dale Coyne Racing-bound Sato, while it has further deepened its ties with BMW in sportscars.
The team has run GT cars for the German marque since 2009 and runs a two-car factory programme in the IMSA SportsCar Championship’s GTD Pro class with the new M4 GT3. Next year, it will campaign two of BMW’s forthcoming LMDh prototypes in the GTP division.
“We’ve been very fortunate as an organisation to see tremendous growth,” said Rahal.
“I think back so much to 2015. Yes, we had success, but we had no money, no sponsors, to where we are today, now expanding to three cars.
“We have our new building which is going to be a statement certainly to our focus and seriousness about going out and winning. I think it’s been really, really good.”
Graham Rahal, Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Honda
Photo by: Barry Cantrell / Motorsport Images
Meanwhile, Rahal has set his sights on a title challenge in 2022, believing he can learn from his team-mates – with US-based Harvey in particular “way more involved than what I’m used to in Indianapolis” from Sato.
“I definitely think we are a championship contender; we should have been last year,” said Rahal.
“Obviously, the double points race at Indy [500] really, really hurt us [when his car shed a wheel following a pit stop and crashed into the wall], but we’re just going to make sure we don’t have those mishaps again.
“I expect us to be in championship contention.
“I felt that last year we ended our season really, really well and I think it sets us up nicely as we go into this season and try to carry on that momentum.
“The guys were doing an amazing job in the pits, we were racing extremely well and so we just want to keep that going into St. Pete.
“We’re excited; we feel that we are one of the cars to beat and feel like we’re going to be up front consistently and hopefully get some wins early in the season and carry that momentum throughout the whole year.”