Embarrassing mistake? Mick Schumacher’s strange tire strategy

– Did Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing apply a tire rule at the IndyCar race at Barber Motorsports Park that actually only applies to street circuits? Graham Rahal says something unbelievable at the press conference, which could also explain Mick Schumacher’s strange strategy in Birmingham.

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Asked about his own strategy, the 37-year-old explains: “I’ll be honest, I messed up because I honestly thought the rule said you had to run two ‘Alts’ today. But that only applies to street circuits.” By “Alts” he means the alternates, i.e., the soft tires. They are also referred to as “Reds” because they are marked with red sidewalls.

The background is a new rule that IndyCar published shortly before the start of the season. However, this only applies to temporary street circuits like St. Petersburg or Arlington. There, the soft tire must now be used in at least two stints in the race and not just one.

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Rahal had now projected this rule onto Barber Motorsports Park as well, but this is a permanent road course. Here, the rule from previous years still applies, stating that one stint each must be driven on fresh soft and hard tires.

The fact that Rahal was not corrected by his team in this regard suggests that RLL may also have assumed they had to use two sets of soft tires. To make the confusion complete, American television also fell for the same error as Rahal. The US commentators also announced before the start that two sets of soft tires had to be used.

In any case, this could explain why Mick Schumacher used soft tires in at least two of his three soft stints, which were surprisingly absolutely disadvantageous. Louis Foster tried a completely hopeless four-stop strategy that dropped him even further behind Schumacher. They may have been speculating on a yellow flag period here, which never came.

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Rahal, like many others, was surprised by the low durability of the soft tires. A whole series of drivers, including race winner Alex Palou and championship leader Kyle Kirkwood, had to take used hard tires in the final stint because they preferred them even over a fresh set of soft tires.

Besides Schumacher and Foster, only two other drivers ran the soft tire three times in the race: Penske driver Josef Newgarden, who finished tenth, well below his own expectations, and Andretti driver Will Power, who had to start from the back after his qualifying crash and thus took risks. He finished twelfth. RLL was the only team where all drivers used the soft tire at least twice.

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No difference in set-up

“Many of us thought it would be a ‘Red Race’ [as in previous years] today. In any case, we assumed so and thought we had an advantage by saving a set of soft tires for the race.” The soft tire was revised for this year and fitted with more sustainable materials. No one expected that this would make such a big difference compared to previous years.

Rahal also admits that, at least for him, it didn’t make a big difference which tires he had on because the rear tires on his car degraded too quickly. “That’s been our Achilles’ heel so far. I had problems with the rear on both tires. To be honest, that surprised me quite a bit because I hadn’t noticed any signs of it all weekend.”

But regardless of whether it was a mistake or a conscious tire choice for Schumacher: even that cannot explain the blatant difference to Rahal. It couldn’t have been the set-up that Schumacher was only just able to avoid being lapped by his own teammate, while Foster was actually lapped.

“They copied my set-up today. It was a bit different over the past two days. Mick’s and my set-up are always pretty much the same, which is why we were both so good in Phoenix. Louis tends to go slightly different ways. Today they started with exactly the same car. We all have to sit down together and understand that,” Rahal explains.

Finding out where the difference to the other two drivers lay (other than the tire strategy) is now the primary goal. And that will be tedious: “People always think that we must know why something worked. But it’s not that simple.”

He has one possible starting point: “I am significantly heavier than they are. That naturally changes the weight distribution. So we have to carefully check the changes on my car, what they did, and then see where the difference [to the other two drivers] lies.”

In any case, RLL has plenty to do until the next race in Long Beach, whether it’s in terms of rule knowledge or data analysis. At least the team has reason to celebrate, as it was Rahal’s first podium since August 2023 (Indianapolis road course) and the first podium for the team since May 2024, when Christian Lundgaard also finished third on the Indianapolis road course.

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