“We were making good progress with both cars from Practice 1, 2 and 3 and then the red tires in qualifying were definitely a curve ball since none of the teams got to test them before hand," said Technical Director Jay O'Connell. "We struggled with rear grip on the red tires which was unexpected based on our experience from last year but we will learn from that and take it into account for tomorrow and make sure the setups are good for both red and black tires and look forward to a better race. We used this rain tire in Detroit last year so we can lean on that experience if we need them tomorrow. This rain tire is better in lower water depths so it’s better for transition to dry situations. If its really deep water they will probably stop the race because of water collecting. So this rain tire should work well in the conditions they will let us run in.”

The 2013 Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg will mark the sixth IndyCar Series race for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing (RLLR) in St. Petersburg. It will be the team’s first time to run full season, multiple-car programs since 2007 (Sharp and Simmons/Hunter-Reay) RLLR has entered the No. 15 Midas / Big O Tires car for Graham Rahal and the No. 16 Acorn Stairlifts car for James Jakes to bring the team’s total to 10 entries for this event.

Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing will begin their 22nd consecutive season of competition in 2013.  This season marks the first time the team has prepared more than one fulltime entry for the full IZOD IndyCar Series season since 2007 when Scott Sharp and Jeff Simmons drove for the team. Simmons was replaced by Ryan Hunter-Reay for the final six of 17 races. The team entered cars in the Indy 500 each year since then and will prepare the No. 15 Midas / Big O Tires entry for Graham Rahal and the No. 16 Acorn Stairlifts entry for James Jakes for the full 2013 season and will enter the No. 17 blu eCigs entry for Mike Conway in the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach. Conway will pilot the No. 16 car on Tuesday at Barber Motorsports Park (BMP) and Jakes will take over on Wednesday.

SEBRING, Fla. (February 19, 2013) – Graham Rahal completed a trouble-free day of testing his No. 15 Midas / Big O Tires Honda-Dallara-Firestone race car today at the 1.65-mile Sebring International Raceway short course in preparation for the 2013 IZOD IndyCar Series season.  He completed 142 laps with a best lap time of 52.67.