Graham Rahal

Early years

As the son of former Champ Car and Indy 500 champion Bobby Rahal, Graham Rahal showed early on that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. He achieved success in karting and won the 2005 championship in the Formula Atlantic class of the SCCA National Championship Run-offs (his father had won the same title thirty years earlier).

In 2006, Graham Rahal made his Champ Car Atlantic debut and fought for the championship until the final race of the season, where mechanical problems sealed his fate, leaving him to finish second behind Simon Pagenaud.

Champ Car debut and early success

Despite this setback, he had made enough of an impression to secure a Champ Car debut the following year as teammate to Sebastien Bourdais at Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing. In just his third race, he finished second, and later in his debut season, he would score three more podiums.

After the reunification of Champ Car and the IRL, Rahal followed NHLR to the unified IndyCar Series. The young American missed the first race in Homestead due to a testing crash, but he came back strong in his next race, winning in St. Petersburg. However, he wasn’t able to replicate that result for the rest of the season, finishing in the top ten only four times.

Challenging seasons and mixed results

The 2009 season was a better year for the young American, with two podium finishes and a seventh-place championship finish. However, this wasn’t enough to secure a full-time seat for 2010. That year, Rahal became a frequent substitute in the IndyCar field, driving for Sarah Fisher Racing, Rahal Letterman Racing, Dreyer & Reinbold Racing, and finishing the season with Newman/Haas Racing.

Move to Chip Ganassi Racing

The silver lining of a tough year was that Rahal secured enough sponsorship to make the move to Chip Ganassi Racing a year later. Driving for Ganassi’s B-team in 2011, the hoped-for results did not materialize, although he did manage three podiums in his first year. His second year with Ganassi in 2012 was even worse, despite a second-place finish in Texas. As a result, he chose to switch to his father’s team, Rahal Letterman Racing.

Years of ups and downs

In 2013, Rahal returned to the podium with a second-place finish in Long Beach, but with only one top-5 and three top-10 finishes, it was a disappointing year. In 2014, Graham Rahal once again drove for his father’s team. It turned out to be a year to forget, with his only notable result being a second-place finish in Detroit, Belle Isle.

The turnaround in 2015

The 2015 season marked a turning point in Graham Rahal’s career. He was a title contender up until the season finale and won two races: one in Fontana, California, and his home race at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. The following season was another competitive one for Rahal; he finished fifth in the championship and won a race at Texas Motor Speedway, narrowly beating James Hinchcliffe in a photo finish.

In 2017, Rahal continued his positive trajectory, though he fell short of the top five in the championship standings, finishing sixth. However, he dominated the Detroit, Belle Isle weekend, convincingly winning both races. After seven consecutive seasons finishing in the top ten of the championship, Rahal’s performance began to decline.

Gradual decline in performance

In 2022, Rahal finished a disappointing eleventh, and 2023 turned into a disastrous year. He failed to qualify for the Indy 500 (although he eventually competed as a replacement for Stefan Wilson), and his fifteenth-place championship finish was his worst result since 2014. The only bright spot was a second-place finish on the infield of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

The results in 2024 did not improve for Rahal. In a difficult year, he narrowly qualified for the Indy 500, but only occasionally appeared in the top ten. With just five top ten finishes in seventeen races, he ended the season eighteenth in the championship, his worst result since 2014.