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Tag: Graham Rahal

  • Graham Rahal Placed on Probation Following Incident with Marco Andretti

    Graham Rahal Placed on Probation Following Incident with Marco Andretti

    [media-credit name=”Sal Sigala Jr.” align=”alignright” width=”301″][/media-credit]Following a lap 22 incident during the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach, IndyCar officials have placed IZOD IndyCar Series driver Graham Rahal on probation for the next six events for blocking and initiating avoidable contact.

    The probation will end following the June 23rd event at Iowa Speedway. If Rahal does not meet necessary improvements, IndyCar may impose further penalties.

    On lap 22, Rahal made contact with Marco Andretti, launching Andretti’s car into the air before Andretti made contact with the tire barrier. Andretti was uninjured in the incident.

    “Due to the inability of the No. 38 car to continue the race, a review of the on-track actions of Graham Rahal became a post-race issue,” Beaux Barfield,

    IndyCar president of competition and IZOD IndyCar Series Race Director, says.  “All stewards have reviewed the incident and have decided that the on-track actions of Graham warranted probation because of driving that endangers on-track safety and adversely affects competition.”

    Rahal broke two rules in the rule book – Rule 9.3.2 and Rule 9.3.3

    Rule 9.3.2 states “a driver must not alter his/her racing line based on the actions of pursuing drivers to inhibit or prevent passing. Blocking will result in a minimum of a black flag “drive through” penalty.”

    Rule 9.3.3 states “a competitor must not initiate or attempt to initiate avoidable contact that results in the interruption of another competitor’s lap time or track position.”

    Following the incident, Andretti called Rahal out on the block.

    “There’s a difference between blocking and chopping and that’s chopping,” he said following the wreck. “I was lucky I didn’t get upside down; I could’ve been killed.”

    Rahal’s response was, “I was just trying to stay underneath (Scott) Dixon and obviously I surprised Marco. He wasn’t going to make the corner no matter what. If he stayed beside me, he was going to overshoot it. It’s just frustrating. The car felt really strong.”

    The probation penalty may be protested pursuant to the rulebook.

  • Dario Franchitti Leads First Practice For MoveThatBlock.com Indy 225

    In the first practice at New Hampshire Motor Speedway for the MoveThatBlock.com Indy 225 on Thursday, Dario Franchitti led the way with a lap of 21.5665 seconds (171.099mph).

    “My first order of business today was to learn the track and the first run felt good,” Franchitti said. “It is definitely a lot easier to learn a place when the car is doing what you want it to. I think we are in good shape now and we will be chasing the track a little bit. We’ll see if we can continue this form into the weekend.”

    His lap is only a tenth off of the record at New Hampshire, which was set by Andrew Riberio in 1995 at a lap of 21.466 seconds. Ribeiro is now the manager for series driver Ana Beatriz.

    Franchitti’s Ganassi teammate Scott Dixon was in second (21.6204 seconds), followed by Graham Rahal (21.6644).

    “The car felt good today,” Dixon said. “We struggled at the beginning of the day with a few set-up changes we had to go through. Traffic is chaotic here because it seems like some cars are very slow and you catch them fast. So must of the challenge is dealing with that. We spent a lot of time on working on the race car and I feel pretty comfortable now. The Target cars were quick today and so was Graham (Rahal) so we are in good shape for now but we will see what happens Saturday and Sunday.”

    KV Racing Technology-Lotus teammates Tony Kanaan (21.7368) and Taku Sato (21.7713) rounded out the top five. The top 10 in the 27-car lineup were separated by less than four-tenths of a second.

    “We had a pretty solid day today,” Kanaan said. “We took our time to go out in the morning practice, but we were fast right away and kept improving the car during the afternoon run. I think that there are some minor tweaks that we can try on Saturday before qualifying to see if we can get the car a little bit faster, but overall I’m happy with how the day went.”

    “It was a good first day,” Sato said. “We ran a lot of miles and I learned a lot.  This track is quite unique, but we were up to speed very quickly and worked on various things.  It was a very productive day.”

    During the session, Pippa Mann made significant contact with the wall, however was cleared to drive for the rest of the weekend by medical staff.

    “We worked very hard throughout the morning on making the car better and the RLL guys made some really good changes to the car that felt like they were going to help us,” she said. “We found some grip and some stability and were working on gathering speed over the bumps when we had our incident. I am disappointed but I know that the whole team will work very hard to get everything where we need it to be for Saturday’s qualifying!”

    The race on Sunday August 14th marks Team Penske’s 1,300 start in open-wheel racing and Helio Castroneves is set make his 200th career Indy car start for the team.

    “Our Guidepoint Systems Team Penske car still needs a little something,” he said. “We me made a lot of changes today and we learned a few things. Now we just have to sort through the data and take the next step. We will be ready to go on Saturday.”

    There are two practice sessions Aug. 13 prior to two-lap qualifications with no practice planned for Friday August 12th.