{"id":301182,"date":"2023-05-27T21:13:29","date_gmt":"2023-05-27T21:13:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=301182"},"modified":"2023-05-27T22:59:54","modified_gmt":"2023-05-27T22:59:54","slug":"stars-tough-tribute-seven-years-after-f1-drivers-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=301182","title":{"rendered":"Star's 'tough' tribute seven years after F1 driver's death"},"content":{"rendered":"

Graham Rahal's surprise return to the Indianapolis 500<\/a> grid is both bittersweet and beautiful.<\/p>\n

Having been knocked out of the race on Monday<\/a>, the IndyCar Series veteran was gifted a lifeline on Wednesday<\/a>.<\/p>\n

That came after Stefan Wilson was hit by Katherine Legge during the second-to-last practice, breaking his back, and ruling him out of the race<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Stan Sport is the only place to watch the 2023 IndyCar Series, featuring Will Power, Scott McLaughlin and Scott Dixon.<\/strong><\/em> All the action streaming ad free, live and on demand<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

With confirmation that Wilson would not be able to race, his Dreyer & Reinbold Racing team gave Rahal the call to fill the void.<\/p>\n

\"Graham<\/p>\n

He said yes, not only because it meant he would be back in the race but because it was the right thing to do in his mind.<\/p>\n

The Ohio-born driver has a special connection to Stefan by virtue of having raced alongside his brother Justin \u2013 who died in 2015.<\/p>\n

Rahal's connection to the family stems all the way back to 2006.<\/p>\n

Justin was an experienced head by that point, having made it to Formula 1 by 2003, before turning his attention to North American single-seater racing in 2004.<\/p>\n

\"Katherine<\/p>\n

Rahal, meanwhile, was a relative newcomer and racing one rung below IndyCar, hellbent on making it to Formula 1.<\/p>\n

The 2006 season would prove pivotal in deciding the young gun's future, as he recalled.<\/p>\n

"I think about Justin a lot," said Rahal.<\/p>\n

"When the call came, right away it was an immediate connection.<\/p>\n

\"Graham<\/p>\n

"Frankly, I think in many ways, Justin helped in more ways than one kind of shape my career \u2013 not only as a man and who you should be, how you should act, all that stuff.<\/p>\n

"I remember in 2006 I was in Formula Atlantic. Of course, I don't know why but we had a joint autograph session with the Champ Car guys.\u00a0<\/p>\n

"We were in Portland. I was still dreaming that hey, maybe someday Formula 1, and Justin Wilson was the guy who told me that it was way too political and I didn't have the right filter to enter Formula 1.<\/p>\n

"If it were not for him, I probably would have kept chasing a different dream. In many ways, he did help me, but I do know as a teammate, too, when I was with him at Newman\/Haas and then again with Dennis (Reinbold) at Iowa, he's just a tremendous, tremendous guy, and Stef is right there with him."<\/p>\n

Rahal graduated to IndyCar a year later in 2007 where he has been a staple ever since.\ufeff<\/p>\n

\"Justin<\/p>\n

Justin remains the last driver in IndyCar Series history to die during a race.<\/p>\n

His untimely passing came seven years and eight months ago at Pocono Raceway.<\/p>\n

A carbon fibre nose cone hit his head after Sage Karam lost control of his car and hit the wall, scattering debris across the track.<\/p>\n

Since then, safety innovations have seen a Formula 1-style halo and a windscreen fitted to prevent similar incidents.\ufeff<\/p>\n

\"Graham<\/p>\n

Rahal said he felt a level of obligation to step into the seat vacated by Stefan after his unfortunate practice crash.<\/p>\n

"Their entire family I have the utmost respect for, and in a scenario like this, I felt\u2026 had it been something different, I don't know how compelled I would have been, particularly with the storylines of the last couple days," Rahal explained.<\/p>\n

"Trust me, for me it was a little bit of a bittersweet moment; do I do it? Do I not? Is it appropriate? Is it not? But in this circumstance\u2026 it just felt right.<\/p>\n

"As I said, I can't thank Honda and Chevy and all the sponsors enough. It's been a tough week for our sponsors, as well, and for everybody who's been able to make this possible to release me to come over here. I'm super grateful."<\/p>\n

The 107th running of the Indianapolis 500 gets underway on Monday at 1am (AEST) with coverage live, ad-free, and exclusively on Stan Sport<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by<\/strong><\/em> clicking here<\/strong><\/em><\/a>!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Graham Rahal's surprise return to the Indianapolis 500 grid is both bittersweet and beautiful. Having been knocked out of the race on Monday, the IndyCar […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":301184,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301182"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=301182"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301182\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":301189,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301182\/revisions\/301189"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/301184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=301182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=301182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=301182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}