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IndyCar: Championship standings implications of Graham Rahal’s penalty

By Asher Fair

SONOMA, CA - SEPTEMBER 14: Graham Rahal driver of the #15 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Honda during practice for the Verizon IndyCar Series Sonoma Grand Prix at Sonoma Raceway on September 14, 2018 in Sonoma, California. (Photo by Robert Laberge/Getty Images)
SONOMA, CA - SEPTEMBER 14: Graham Rahal driver of the #15 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Honda during practice for the Verizon IndyCar Series Sonoma Grand Prix at Sonoma Raceway on September 14, 2018 in Sonoma, California. (Photo by Robert Laberge/Getty Images) /
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One position may not seem like much, but early in the 2019 IndyCar season, Graham Rahal’s blocking penalty had some major implications in the championship standings.

Following the conclusion of the 2019 IndyCar season’s fourth race, the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach, on the streets of Long Beach, California, IndyCar penalized Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing’s Graham Rahal.

Rahal drove his #15 Honda to a third place finish in this race, which was his highest finish in any IndyCar race since he finished in second in the 2018 season opener on the streets of St. Petersburg, Florida, but IndyCar made the controversial decision that he illegally blocked a hard-charging Scott Dixon on the race’s final lap.

As a result, the driver of the #9 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda was awarded third place despite the fact that he finished 0.1156 seconds behind Rahal in fourth. Rahal ended up being demoted to fourth, which still ended up being his highest finish since he finished in second in last year’s season opener.

But while giving one position to one driver and taking one position from another may not seem like a huge deal, especially in a regular points-paying race, Rahal’s penalty ended up affecting the championship standings in a pretty major way, at least in terms of how they look after this race.

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Third place finishes are worth 35 points while fourth place finishes are worth 32 points, so Dixon effectively gained three points due to this penalty while Rahal effectively lost three.

Dixon sits in third place in the championship standings and would sit in third even had Rahal not been issued this penalty. Instead of sitting in third with 130 points and trailing points leader Josef Newgarden of Team Penske by 36 points and second place driver Alexander Rossi of Andretti Autosport by eight points, he sits in third with 133 points and trails these two drivers by 33 points and five points, respectively.

For Rahal, however, the difference is more noticeable. He sits in ninth place in the championship standings with 90 points. But the three drivers directly in front of him in the standings are all within three points of him.

Arrow Schmidt Peterson Motorsports’ James Hinchcliffe and Team Penske’s Will Power currently sit in a sixth place tie in the championship standings with 93 points while Dale Coyne Racing’s Sebastien Bourdais sits in eighth with 91 points. Had Rahal not been penalized, he would be tied for sixth with 93 points as opposed to sitting in ninth.

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The 2019 IndyCar season is still young, so the three points that Scott Dixon gained and that Graham Rahal lost may not end up meaning much in the long run. But seeing as how Dixon is known for winning championships by capitalizing on his opportunities to score as many points as possible, this penalty could end up being a big deal in the long run, and as of right now, it has had a huge effect on the championship standings, particularly in terms of demoting Rahal.