GRAHAM RAHAL, No. 15 One Cure Dallara/Honda/Firestone: "I messed up. I misjudged it bad and take it on the chin. To be honest I lost my depth there a little bit in the pack. Obviously I misjudged it by not just a little, but by quite a lot. I'm disappointed, not just for myself but also for the guys we affected. It hurt Takuma as well. At the start, the pace was fine and all that but I screwed up. I'm sorry for One Cure and everyone else."
· FAST FACTS: Started 15th and misjudged the braking point into the first turn on the opening lap which resulted in a multi-car crash. His race car was placed outside the track and the team could not attempt to repair it and continue. He retired in 23rd place… Was the fifth overall race for Graham at PIR and third in the headline event. Last year, he started 10th and had gotten through Turns 1 and 2, which was expected to be action-packed at the start, and after getting through Turn 2 Zach Veach squeezed James Hinchcliffe and the two made contact which set off a multi-car crash that collected Hinchcliffe, Marco Andretti, Rahal, points-leader Scott Dixon and his then teammate Ed Jones. Rahal's car was too damaged to continue so it was towed back to the paddock and after more than one hour he returned to the track to complete a handful of laps to collect two championship points, which was the maximum possible. This move helped him at season's end. He competed in the 2007 Champ Car World Series race where he started eighth and finished ninth in his rookie season for Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing. He started from pole in the Atlantics race here in 2006 but was hit by Simon Pagenaud on Lap 1 and finished 27th. In 2005, he earned his first professional win at PIR in the Star Mazda race after starting fourth and winning by a margin of 0.0317 seconds over James Hinchcliffe. His highest start of the season is second at Barber and his highest finish is third at Texas Motor Speedway… Has SIX IndyCar Series wins (2008 - St. Pete street course; 2015 - Fontana Super Speedway, Mid-Ohio road course; 2016 - Texas Super Speedway; 2017 Detroit Race 1, Detroit Race 2) and THREE poles (2009 - St. Pete street course, Kansas oval; 2017 - Detroit Race 1 street) and his highest series season-ending standing is fourth place in 2015… Rahal dropped from eighth to ninth in series point standings with a total of 353.