'They are both of drinking age and born in the 2000s' - Graham Rahal hilariously assesses his RLL IndyCar teammates

Graham Rahal enters the 2025 IndyCar season as a seasoned veteran, with 18 years of IndyCar experience behind him. Contrastingly, out of his two new teammates at Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, one is a rookie, and the other has only two years of experience in the series. This stat led Rahal to laugh at his position as an 'old' driver on the team.

The 36-year-old driver's two new teammates are rookie Louis Foster and former Andretti driver Devlin DeFrancesco, who took a sabbatical (from IndyCar) in 2024. Foster, born in 2003, is the 2024 Indy NXT champion, having dominantly won the title with eight wins with Andretti Global. DeFrancesco, a 2000-born, doesn't have similar heroics in the junior series or IndyCar to boast about.

Ahead of the 2025 IndyCar season, IndyCarRadio asked Graham Rahal if he has stopped feeling "hip and cool" now that two drivers born in this millennium will be his teammates.

"Well, yeah," he replied. "But it's not because of them. It's because of many other things. But that's actually a crazy stat. They are both of drinking age and born in the 2000s. So that hurts a little bit to think about. But look man, they still got to come, they still got to race us, they still got to beat us."

Rahal's teammate situation in 2024 wasn't any different either. Then-teammate Christian Lundgaard, now an Arrow McLaren driver, was born in 2001, while his third teammate Pietro Fittipaldi was born in 1996, still considerably younger than him.

Graham Rahal recalls his good memories at St. Petersburg ahead of the 2025 IndyCar season opener

2018 Firestone Grand Prix - Source: Getty

IndyCar's 2025 season opener race will take place on the streets of St. Petersburg. It was at this track that Graham Rahal took his first IndyCar victory in 2008 with Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, becoming the then-youngest race winner at 19 years, three months, and two days. It was his debut race in IndyCar if we were to treat its predecessor Champ Car racing as a separate series.

Ahead of the upcoming race at St. Pete on March 2, Rahal reminisced about his success at the circuit.

"I do have good memories," he told @IndyCarRadio. "It's been... it's been a long time. I love St. Pete, great way to kick off the year, great first race. Just an awesome, awesome area to go to. So just a lot of great memories."

The 2025 season will be Rahal's 13th year driving for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, a team co-owned by his three-time champion father Bobby Rahal. He will have a point to prove after three seasons of plummeting results. His last two race victories came at the Detroit double-header in 2017, and his last podium was in 2023.