We are 44 days away from the St. Petersburg season opener for the 2026 IndyCar season, and some teams will be welcoming new drivers to the fold. Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing is one of those teams. It will be another year with a rookie behind the wheel, but the team is hoping to grow upon what was learned in 2025.
Last year, none of the RLLR entries finished better than 19th in the championship. There were a few good races and it came closer to winning a race in 2025 than about half the grid, but it could not pull out a much-needed victory. There are reasons to believe things will get better in 2026, but expectations should be tampered. This team has to make a step before it should think it could land a massive leap.
At a Glance... They did something notable
RLLR signed Mick Schumacher to fill out its driver lineup while retaining Graham Rahal and Louis Foster.
It is something.
Schumacher is coming to IndyCar after a pair of seasons running for Alpine in the FIA World Endurance Championship. This came after a forgettable two seasons in Formula One. Despite being a Formula Two champion, Schumacher did not make any waves at Haas and the Formula One grid moved on. He is a driver motivated and wanted to be in single-seater racing. IndyCar is one of the limited options that fulfills that desire.
He passed the audition after a test on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course last autumn, and RLLR hopes this known name will help turnaround a program.
Schumacher is the headline acquisition. It is not just his junior series success and Formula One experience, but it is the familiarity with the Drive to Survive audience and the thrill of having the son of one of the greatest race car drivers of all-time competition that has potential to grab some attention. However, Schumacher is what everyone will see on the surface. RLLR made moves deeper than that.
Gavin Ward has joined the team after a year sabbatical when he left the Arrow McLaren organization. Ward was previously a champion at Team Penske working with Josef Newgarden. Brian Barnhart has also become RLLR's senior vice president of operations after a stint at McLaren. The team also brought in Kyle Sagan from McLaren as its pit stop manager.
This was team president Jay Frye's first chance to mold the team after he joined RLLR last April, and Frye is looking to improve across the board. It isn't just having better setups and develop better dampers but it is having better pit stops and running better strategies. This is a full effort to move the team up the grid through a comprehensive system change.
Every offseason the likes of RLLR, Ed Carpenter Racing, A.J. Foyt Racing and so on talk about the changes made that should lead to better results. Every team is making changes to improve. No one is sitting still. One fix isn't going to take a team from 19th to fifth. For the last three seasons, RLLR has been trying to get better and continued to slip backward. The good news is the team did find some speed at Indianapolis Motor Speedway and avoided being in the bumping battle during Indianapolis 500 qualifying. Consider that step one complete. Now comes checking off a few more boxes.
There is plenty of knowhow within this organization that stagnation does not seem possible. This was an offseason that should lead to some growth. It isn't going to flip results overnight, but this team should see all three of its cars move forward.
Graham Rahal is a still a respectable driver, and he wouldn't have been knocking on the door for victory last year on the IMS road course if he didn't still have some ability in him to wrestle the most out of a car. Results did not always show the pace Louis Foster carried in 2025. In year two, Foster should be able to finish races stronger than he did as a rookie. Which leads to Schumacher, who is not entering a settled organization, but a team that is in the process of working out the kinks and will be experimenting at times.
Enough has been done that we should be seeing RLLR in a more positive light this season than we have over the last few years. It isn't going to be perfect, but it should be fascinating to see what strides are made.
2025 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Review
Wins: 0
Best Finish: 4th (Portland)
Poles: 0
Best Start: 2nd (Grand Prix of Indianapolis)
Championship Finishes: 19th (Graham Rahal), 23rd (Louis Foster), 26th (Devlin DeFrancesco)
Graham Rahal - #15 Fifth Third Bank/United Rentals Honda
Numbers to Remember:
5: Consecutive top ten finishes on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course
4: Consecutive seasons finishing outside the championship top ten
17: Finishes outside the top fifteen in the last 34 races
What is the best possible outcome?
Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing returns to the form seen prior to 2020, Rahal gets his seven to nine finishes a season between sixth and tenth, he has another two or three finishes in the top five or on the podium, and that is enough for Rahal to get back in the top ten of the championship. A high point could be seeing everything continue to click at the IMS road course, and Rahal is able to turn that speed into a victory after a few close calls, and that gets to be his high point of the season.
What is realistic?
For every team in IndyCar, the top fifteen is the bare minimum. If everything goes right, every team is capable of cracking the top fifteen. It isn't great, but it is pretty understandable considering the level of competition.
That is the goal for all three RLLR entries after none of them finished better than 19th in the championship last year. You don't have to finish in the top ten in half the races to make the top fifteen. Rahal had three top ten finishes last year. If he doubles that and has more finishes inside the top twenty, the top fifteen is in play. If strides have actually been made, it will be a fight to break into the top half of the championship.
Louis Foster - #45 Mi-Jack Honda
Numbers to Remember:
7: Finishes between 11th and 15th in 2025
6: Top ten starts in 2025
6: Times finishing better than his starting position
0: Of those came when he started in the top ten
What is the best possible outcome?
The qualifying pace is still there and possibly gets better. In turn, Foster's race form improves greatly. Most of the races he starts in the top ten end in top ten finishes, and in a few of those he does better. He gets a top five finish or two and has a run for a podium in at least one race. With these results, he can get into the top fifteen of the championship and he could be pushing closer to 12th or 13th in the championship.
What is realistic?
Foster likely should have had a top ten finish or two in 2025. I am not sure he should have had more than that. He might have been 21st in the championship instead of 23rd if that was the case. If he can match his race finishes to the qualifying pace we saw, he can crack the top fifteen and be just outside the top ten of the championship, and he would be one of the feel-good stories of the season. He should have learned from last season and should improve.
I don't think we are going to see the best case scenario. A good step would be five or six top ten finishes with maybe one of those being a top five race where he is in the top ten all day and deserved that finish. He could still fall short of the top fifteen but if he gets up to 16th or 17th it is a good step in a sophomore season.
Mick Schumacher - #47 Honda
Numbers to Remember:
1,197: Days between Schumacher's most recent single-seater start (2022 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix) and the 2026 season opener from St. Petersburg
4: Podium finishes in two seasons with Alpine in the World Endurance Championship
17.7307: Average finish for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing entries in the 2025 season
What is the best possible outcome?
Christian Lundgaard 2.0.
Schumacher finds immediate comfort in the car and it allows him to extract good results on road and street courses. A few circuits suit him particularly well, and he shines at the IMS road course as one of the front-runners. He is able to make the Fast Six at a few circuits. The ovals are tough for him, but the results are respectable because he is completing laps and gaining experience. A season with about seven to nine top ten finishes with one or two races in the top five and potentially sneaking on the podium with a finish somewhere between 12th and 15th in the championship would be a strong first year.
What is realistic?
The best possible outcome is realistic, but it is not a guarantee. RLLR slid backward significantly from where it was when Lundgaard entered the picture full-time in 2022. Lundgaard also carried a confidence we have not seen from Schumacher, and I am not sure Schumacher can develop it in one season. There is a reserved nature to the German and that time struggling in Formula One with Haas could have hardened that shell and prevent him from getting more out of the car. It could hold back results.
This entry was 26th out of 27th in the championship last year as the #30 Honda. There is only room to go up for Schumacher. He must at least be mixing it up with the other two RLLR drivers. He cannot be third of the three on the regular basis, and I don't think that will be the case. There should be races where Schumacher ends up leading the team, even if it does not mean he is a dozen positions ahead of the other two drivers. Top fifteen is possible, but he could have some off days and drop to 17th, 18th or 19th. Finishing as the best RLLR driver is possible. I would expect five or six top ten finishes, and if things click quickly he could get up to eight or nine top ten finishes.
The 2026 NTT IndyCar Series season begins on Sunday March 1 with the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg. Fox's coverage will begin at noon Eastern.
