- McDonald’s driver Graham Rahal earned his best career oval finish of third place in the 300-lap SunTrust Indy challenge at the 0.75-mile Richmond International Raceway on Saturday night.  He started in fifth place but dropped to sixth behind Rafael Matos on the start.  The team felt that Matos got the jump on him before the start/finish on the opening lap but IndyCar Series officials maintained the running order through the first caution for the crashed car of Jacques Lazier from Laps 1-7.  The second of four cautions came out from Laps 27-37 when Team Penske driver Ryan Briscoe crashed in Turn 2 and moved Rahal to fifth place.  The majority of the field used the caution to make their first stop on Lap 30 when the pits opened and Rahal returned to the track in seventh place behind Hideki Mutoh and Danica Patrick who pitted on the first caution but stayed on track for this one.  Tony Kanaan who qualified 17th only took fuel on the stop and was able to pass Rahal a few laps after the restart with the help of his warmer Firestones.  He had an eventful moment when Marco Andretti’s left rear tire hit his Rahal’s right front but he was able to control his car and march on for the majority of the stint in eighth place until both Mutoh and Patrick made their stops and he climbed to sixth by Lap 111.  He continued to save fuel as he had done since the start of the race and moved into fifth place when fourth place runner Matos pitted.  By staying out longer than many drivers he climbed to third before he was scheduled for his next stop.  The team had begun the 10 lap countdown but a caution came out on the exact lap they were to pit and he had to enter a closed pit on Lap 138 of the 138-153 caution for rookie Mike Conway who crashed in Turn 4 to take on a splash of fuel in order to continue.   Once the pits opened he entered them for the third time and took on four new Firestone tires and a full tank of ethanol.  Prior to the caution, he had built up enough of a lead on fourth place which resulted in enough track position to maintain third place through the stops for a splash and another complete stop.  Once the race resumed on Lap 154 of 300, he maintained third place comfortably before he made his final stop on Lap 250 – again under a caution that came out when he was preparing to enter the pits but the team had enough fuel to coast under caution until the pits opened.  The caution lasted from Laps 248-259 while the crashed car of Helio Castroneves was removed from Turn 2.  Once the race resumed he held his position until the checkered flag and collected 35 points to maintain his ninth place rank in the standings with 180, only 39 points from the top-five Danica Patrick (219). Scott Dixon won the race while teammate Dario Franchitti finished second.  Following are Rahal’s post race comments:  

 

“It shows how hard the McDonald’s guys worked because honestly at the start of this weekend we weren’t where we wanted to be and we were struggling,” said Rahal. “We just kept working through it. It’s great to be on the podium. We’ve been good on the short ovals but we just need to find some more speed on the mile-and-a-half’s.  This was like a win for us.  My engineers told me I needed to save as much fuel as possible.  Its always hard to do as a driver because you want to push as hard as you can but you need to save fuel.  I didn’t understand it so much before but I did tonight. Martin, my engineer and I and all of the guys worked extremely hard this weekend and we made more changes this weekend that I can remember ever making.  It feels great to get this result for the McDonald’s team. It’s a great way to go into some road races.  We’re looking forward to it.”