Rahal, Honda To Start Sixth at Road America
• Graham Rahal advances to Fast Six final qualifying for the third time in 2016
• Ryan Hunter-Reay fights off illness, qualifies eighth
• Rookie Conor Daly qualifies career-best ninth

Graham Rahal led the way for Honda and his Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing team Saturday at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, advancing to the final round of Verizon IndyCar Series “knockout” qualifying to start sixth in Sunday’s Kohler Grand Prix.

Despite battling a case of the flu, Ryan Hunter-Reay qualified eighth for Honda and Andretti Autosport, while Daly Coyne Racing’s Conor Daly will start ninth, a career-best Indy car start for the rookie. Also driving for the four-car Andretti effort, Carlos Munoz rounded out the top 10 today for Honda.

Sunday’s 50-lap Kohler Grand Prix of Road America starts at 1 p.m. EDT, with live network television coverage on the NBC Sports Network.

Graham Rahal (#15 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Honda) qualified sixth: “We’re surrounded by our championship competitors, and the top Honda, so it feels good to be in that position. I feel like the Gehl / D-A Lubricant Honda is pretty good going into the race. My guys have worked extremely hard to get us in this position. Yeah, it would be nice to be on pole, but I didn’t think that we had enough to get it. On the last [qualifying] round, we decided to go with new blacks (tires) instead of used [softer compound] reds because reds may be better tomorrow. So I didn’t want to put a second run on them. I haven’t raced on a track this difficult in a long time. It seems like every lap you do, the track gives you a little something different. It’s always a challenge. We need a good win this year and want to get a win for Honda and be the team to get them back in Victory Lane at Road America. It’s pretty clear that in this part