Rahal Heads Honda Opening-Day Effort for the Grand Prix of Indianapolis
• Rahal runs third in afternoon session, fourth overall
• Schmidt Peterson Motorsports duo of Hinchcliffe, Aleshin post top-eight times
• Angie’s List Grand Prix of Indianapolis runs Saturday

Graham Rahal continued to pace the Honda effort in the 2016 Verizon IndyCar Series Friday at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course, running third in second of two practice sessions on the day and fourth overall in preparation or Saturday’s Angie’s List Grand Prix of Indianapolis.

The Schmidt Peterson Motorsports duo of Mikhail Aleshin and James Hinchcliffe finished the day sixth and eighth, respectively, despite Hinchcliffe missing the morning practice session due to a fuel system failure. Ryan Hunter-Reay rounded out the top-10 for Honda and Andretti Autosport, with Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing’s Spencer Pigot leading the five rookies in the field, 12th overall.

Activities at the Angie’s List Grand Prix of Indianapolis, precursor to the 100th running of the Indianapolis 500 on May 29, continue tomorrow, with final practice and qualifying. Saturday’s 82-lap race starts at 3:30 p.m. EDT, with live network television coverage on ABC.

Graham Rahal (#15 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Honda): “I think we are okay in terms of performance. We took a big swing there and made a big change for the second session. It was one of those things that would either go our way or not, and I think it hurt us a bit so we will go back on that change for tomorrow. Spencer [Pigot, teammate] had some good finds so we will work with that. Overall we are competitive but I have been fighting a pretty bad cold so it beat me up a little today. We ran a lot of laps this afternoon, so I definitely got a workout and I will sleep well tonight, that’s for sure. I think we learned some stuff there. We’re going to get this Steak ‘n Shake machine back up front.”