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Rahal’s Possible Second Car For Servia Creates Interesting Conundrum

By Brittany Frederick

Oriol Servia prepares for Verizon IndyCar Series competition. Photo Credit: Chris Owens/Courtesy of IndyCar
Oriol Servia prepares for Verizon IndyCar Series competition. Photo Credit: Chris Owens/Courtesy of IndyCar /
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The latest IndyCar rumor is that Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing wants to field a second car in 2017 for Oriol Servia. Yet it’s not for the usual reasons.

Oriol Servia might be back in the Verizon IndyCar Series next year. The latest scuttlebutt is that the veteran racer and dependable backup driver may join Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing as the team is considering fielding a second car again – but not for the reasons you might think.

Rahal has talked about becoming a two-car team before, most recently expanding so that 2015 Indy Lights champion Spencer Pigot could make his IndyCar debut. But the team hasn’t had a second full-season driver to work with Graham Rahal since James Jakes competed for them in 2013.

And that’s what makes this week’s news interesting: RLL isn’t eyeing Servia because they want a second competitive entry. They’re looking at him as a support driver for Rahal.

According to Racer on Friday, team owner Bobby Rahal is only interested in a second car if it adds “something beneficial to the entire team” and believes that Servia “can make us better.”

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That’s a new way of looking at a second car. You can understand Rahal’s line of thinking; Graham Rahal has been a championship contender for back-to-back seasons and started to win more races, but as a one-car organization RLL has an uphill resource battle against the multi-car teams. Bringing on a veteran second driver, and giving Graham the benefit of his experience and more importantly his data, could be the difference that allows the No. 15 to take that last step from Top 5 driver to Astor Cup winner.

Oriol Servia would certainly fit that bill. He’s made his name on being there for every team that needs help. He filled in for Will Power this March at St. Petersburg and memorably drove the late Justin Wilson’s car in the 2015 season finale at Sonoma. He’s well known as not only a solid driver but most importantly a good teammate.

He also has history with the Rahal Letterman Lanigan organization. They fielded him in the 2009 and 2015 Indianapolis 500’s, and for four other races in 2014. So if he did come aboard he’d come already prepared.

At the same time this is a very expensive way to get extra information, and one has to wonder if it would shift the big picture. Does IndyCar want teams looking at second cars merely as additional resources instead of striving for every entry to be competitive on its own merits? Does it become okay to short-change an individual car if that makes the team they represent stronger, or does the team have a responsibility to each driver?

Whatever the motivation, though, fans could at least be happy for Servia who has constantly shown up in other people’s time of need and busted his behind. He hasn’t had a full-time ride in the series since 2011 when Newman-Haas was still part of IndyCar, and he deserves more than just a few spot starts.

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Any deal with Servia is contingent on finances, which haven’t been secured yet, and Rahal isn’t sure if it would be for a complete full-season ride or just multiple races over the 2017 schedule. But if it goes through this deal could definitely set an interesting precedent for IndyCar.