"Not going to sit back and take it": Graham Rahal gives blunt explanation for fiery exchange with IndyCar reporter

Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing's Graham Rahal came out and explained his exchange with motorsport reporter Nathan Brown regarding the viewership numbers and statistics of the 2025 Thermal Club IndyCar race. The exchange happened on social media platform X and Brown revealed the dropped viewership numbers at Thermal in comparison to 2024.

Nathan Brown dove into the viewership number at Thermal Club, and the criticism around the race regarding the broadcast issues, and uploaded a tweet about the same, linking an article about his analysis.

Graham Rahal responded to the tweet and explained how the race was entertaining, with a lot of overtakes and intriguing race strategies, yet the reporters can't help but look at its negative aspects. This started a back-and-forth of tweets between the duo, and Motorsport reporter Jenna Fryer also stepped in.

Graham Rahal was recently featured on the Speed Freaks YouTube channel and gave a blunt explanation for the fiery exchange with Nathan Brown. He said,

“I feel strongly that the media has a responsibility to report things, not only accurately, but in my opinion, in a light that is cohesive, in a tone that is not divisive. And unfortunately I feel like sometimes even in Motorsports that's not the case and there's a pattern to those who do that. For me, I'm not going to sit back and just take it.” (1:45 onwards)

“I mean, come on now, let's have a little bit of consistency to our reporting, a little calmness to our reporting, a little bit of positivity instead of the negativity constantly to, you know, what we're saying. And ultimately that's why, you know, I said what I said and I quote, tweeted Nathan Brown and stuff, because, you know, let's not fool ourselves,” added Graham Rahal.

The 2025 Thermal Club race averaged 704,000 viewers on all of FOX’s streaming and broadcast platforms. The race averaged 788,000 viewers in 2024 and when compared to the 2025 season opener, the viewership numbers dropped by 50% as St. Pete averaged 1.4 million viewers.

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Graham Rahal detailed the NASCAR reason behind diminished ratings

The Thermal Club IndyCar race coincided with the NASCAR Cup Series race at Homestead Miami Speedway. The IndyCar broadcast faced issues at Thermal, and FOX turned to broadcasting the NASCAR race while the issues were resolved.

Graham Rahal detailed the same on social media platform X and in response to Jenna Fryer’s tweet. The RLL driver's tweet read,

“Head to head with NASCAR AND issues with telecast. NASCAR is, and has been the whale. The rest did not face this competition otherwise they would’ve also seen greatly diminished ratings. That’s FACTS. Nobody said the rating is good, but the sky is falling narrative is also false. How bout we give it more than 2 races to see if there’s validity to this?”

The IndyCar broadcast at Thermal Club was gone for over 30 laps due to some technical troubles at the track.