Graham Rahal will contest the Indianapolis 500 with father Bobby Rahal's Rahal Letterman Racing team.
The younger Rahal has been unable to find a full-time drive this year after losing his Newman/Haas seat during the winter due to a sponsorship shortfall. He contested three early-season events with Sarah Fisher Racing, before a mooted return to Newman/Haas fell through, leaving him on the sidelines for last weekend's Kansas race.
However, he has now completed a deal to drive the Rahal Letterman car at Indy later this month. Bobby Rahal's team, which runs the BMW works program in the American Le Mans Series, has not raced full-time in the IndyCar Series since 2008 but fielded Oriol Servia in a one-off at Indy last year. The Indy outing will mark the first time that Graham Rahal has driven for his father's team in Indy cars.
"I think he has proven he belongs and I'm thrilled to have him," Bobby Rahal told USA Today. "It's flattering when your child wants to do what you do, even better when he wants to do it for you."
Graham Rahal has crashed in both his Indianapolis 500 runs to date, but qualified fourth last year.
“I am extremely excited to be racing with my father and with this team,” said the younger Rahal. “I have known a lot of the guys on this team since I was very young and to go after the dream of winning Indianapolis with them means a lot to me and my family. I know we can put together a quality effort and we expect to be competitive.”
RLR, which is co-owned by television icon David Letterman, has had a number of successes at Indianapolis since the team's inception in 1992. Buddy Rice won from the pole in 2004, and both Danica Patrick (2005) and Ryan Hunter-Reay (2008) were named Indy 500 Rookie of the Year winners while driving for the squad.
The team says it expects to announce further details concerning the livery and potential sponsorship for its No. 30 Dallara-Honda entry in the coming week.