BROWNSBURG, Indiana – Coming off another winning season at Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing in 2019, team manager Ricardo Nault is hoping to double the success in 2020.
Takuma Sato of Japan won two races last season for the team jointly owned by Bobby Rahal, David Letterman and Michael Lanigan. Sato started on the pole and had a very impressive win at Barber Motorsports Park, leading 74 of 90 laps. He also achieved personal redemption in a victory at World Wide Technology Raceway in Madison, Illinois when he started fifth and drove to the win.
That victory came just one week after Sato was blamed for triggering a multi-car crash at the start of the ABC Supply 500 at Pocono Raceway.
Sato entered the final race of the season sixth in the NTT INDYCAR SERIES standings, but a 21st-place finish dropped him to ninth in the championship.
Fellow driver Graham Rahal entered the season with hopes of challenging for the championship. He appeared poised to produce at Barber where he stared outside Row 1 alongside teammate Sato. But an electrical issue after 55 laps dropped Rahal to 23rd.
A 27th-place finish in the double-points paying Indianapolis 500 was costly in the standings. A third-place finish at Texas got Rahal back into the top 10 in the standings, but the final three races that included finishes of 18th (exhaust failure), 23rd (crash) and 12th (running) pushed Rahal to 10th in the standings.
“We had the highs and lows,” Nault told NTT INDYCAR Mobile. “The 30 car team (Sato) did a great job. The 15 car (Rahal) crew didn’t live up to what we were looking to accomplish. If you aren’t winning all the races, you aren’t doing what you want.
“We’ll keep on pushing through to make sure we put ourselves back in the championship hunt in 2020.”
Sato has become a much better driver with age. According to Nault, Sato has always been fast, but often lost his focus in the race. Nault is very impressed with Sato and expects even more success in 2020.
Rahal, who won his first race in 2008, turned 31 on Jan. 4. That age is considered “prime time” for an INDYCAR SERIES driver.
“Definitely, Graham’s best years are still ahead of him,” Nault said. “We showed pretty well a couple of years back. The past few years have been a bit of a struggle for us. There are great things ahead for Graham.
“We look to do really well at Indianapolis Motor Speedway this year and hopefully in the championship.”
Toward the end of 2019, Rahal considered expanding the team to three full-time entries before deciding to stick with a two-driver effort with a third entry at the Indianapolis 500.
“We run three cars at the Speedway every year, so we have the equipment, but beyond that, it’s the people,” Nault said. “It would be great if we could do that in the future. We have to do it early enough to attract the guys we want. Bob has been working on a third INDYCAR SERIES effort. We thought it was close to happening this year.
“That’s Bob’s goal and we are all pushing to make that happen. We are buying extra equipment this year to make sure we have it when we increase to three cars.”
A three-car team remains the goal but that probably won’t happen until 2021 as RLL’s marketing and sponsorship team finds new partners to join the operation. Meantime, Nault will continue to prepare for 2020 with two fast drivers in his cars.
“The competition is getting harder and harder in this series, the speeds are getting tighter and tighter,” Nault said. “It’s like that at every track.
“I’ve been a part of this organization since 1994. In 2012 we started running Takuma as a one-car team without a lot of money. We’ve put together some good races and have been growing since then. The owners give us the resources to make it happen and a marketing team that goes out and finds a lot of money.
“We have two pretty-well funded cars now and we’re close to a third. That goes to the dedication of the owners.”