Andretti Autosport was expected to serve as Honda’s leading team in 2015, but the script in the early stages of the Verizon IndyCar Series championship hasn’t gone according to plan for the defending Indy 500 winners. Tasked with conducting all of Honda’s aero kit testing, it was believed the multi-car Andretti team would enter the season with more information – and in a higher state of readiness – than the other Honda-powered programs.

Leaving last weekend’s Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama, one of the manufacturer’s smallest programs, the single-car effort from Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, has affirmed its surprising status as the brand’s leading representative.

After four races, Graham Rahal’s No. 15 Honda has been the most consistent driver among the 11 full-time entries using the Japanese marque’s engine and aero kit, and with four consecutive finishes inside the top 11, including a thrilling second on Sunday, he holds eighth in the Drivers’ championship. Only Schmidt Peterson Motorsports’ James Hinchcliffe in the No. 5 Honda, who won in the rain at NOLA leads Rahal in the standings in sixth. Andretti Autosport’s three full-time drivers hold 11th, 12th, and 13th in the championship.

It’s a small consolation prize in the midst of a tough season for Honda’s IndyCar teams, yet with an outfit that’s been completely retooled after a disastrous 2014 campaign, the rise of RLLR has been among the best IndyCar storylines this year.

“It feels good in the sense that I’m proud of the team and I’m proud of the people that are making it happen,” said Rahal, who went on a passing spree at Barber Motorsports Park. “Obviously, I give most of the credit to all the boys on the team. They’ve done such a great job. The engineering staff has done such a tremendous job. A lot of people say to me, ‘you’re just driving differently, you’re driving better.’ OK, maybe I am driving more confidently, but at the same time, it’s the people around me and the car I’ve been given that is purely better.”

Teamed with veteran IndyCar engineer Eddie Jones, the 26-year-old built an immediate rapport as RLLR began its pre-season testing program. That relationship has only gotten stronger as the season has gained momentum, and with other personnel changes in the engineering department, Rahal’s father sees the fruits of their chemistry experiment starting to pay off.

“Eddie Jones is a very, very good engineer, and he and Graham have built a rapport like Will Power has with his engineer or Ryan Hunter-Reay has with his or Helio has with his,” said Bobby Rahal, who co-owns the team with David Letterman and Mike Lanigan. “The successful guys have had engineers for many, many years, and that makes for a very powerful combination.

“In addition to Eddie, bringing Mike Talbot in, bringing Martin Pare back in; all of these pieces that we put together here at the end of last year has turned the atmosphere within the team to something extremely positive and productive. The engineers work well together. It’s just a real commitment to yielding the best product they can. That’s such a powerful tool, or weapon really. If the driver and the engineers are thinking along the same lines, as we’ve seen, the results can be pretty spectacular.”

Graham will have the rapid and respected Oriol Servia back as a teammate next month at Indy, and based on their combined efforts last year, the two present the team – and Honda – with a strong 1-2 punch.

“I sat down with T.E. McHale from Honda last year and said, ‘we won’t disappoint you,’” the junior Rahal revealed. “I said, ‘I promise you there’s going to be a different team; you’re going to see a team that’s more committed; you’re going to see a team that has a far greater ability to win.’ I said, ‘I think we could be your best team,’ and I truly believed it then just as I do now. I said that because I felt truly that we had put the people in place.

“And we had Dad, myself, our team manager Ricardo [Nault], and everybody had learned our lessons and what to do, what not to do and where we had gone wrong before. And I think it’s helped. I think it really has made a big difference in our team and where we’re headed. There’s no guaranteeing how the rest of the year’s gonna go, but I will say I don’t think we’re running where we are by mistake.”

Among the other changes this year, Bobby has stepped away from the timing stand during the races. Having someone other than his father on the radio during the first four races has been a positive, but not for the reasons some might expect.

“I don’t place our lack of success in the past on my dad being on the radio; I saw it like some people were trying to say maybe it was his fault, but it wasn’t,” Graham said. “Does the change help me focus? In some ways, yes. We don’t really get into things now like we did before on the radio. But it’s also been a loss, as far as I’m concerned. He’s a student of the sport and I am a student of him. And a lot of strategy and things I have learned over my time I’ve learned from my dad. 

“I think with that being said, there was always something so comforting about having Dad on the radio because I always felt that the strategy calls that we were going to make were going to be right. I never felt that I had to worry about are we sure or are we this or that? At the same time, one of the main things Dad and I agreed to this year is, number one, I need to control my emotions more, and, number two, for him not to be on that timing stand might just remove a level of emotion and might help everybody else. He’s a calming voice, and honestly, I kind of miss having him there at times.”

Andretti Autosport, SPM, or one of the other Honda teams could knock RLLR off its perch as Honda’s best team in 2015, and Bobby Rahal says he and the team will continue fighting to hold onto that position while trying to topple the dominant Chevy runners.

“It’s a lot of fun right now,” the three-time CART IndyCar champion admitted. “I won all my championships with single-car teams. While there are certainly benefits to multicar teams, there’s a real benefit to a single-car team where all the effort is focused on one program.

“There’s a simplicity to that and you can bring a lot of things to bear on that one car that might – you might not be able to across two cars. Ultimately, probably a two-car team is still a better thing, but a very committed, dedicated one car-team can be just as successful. Compared to Andretti, we’re a small team, but the quality of our people is second to none. I think that’s what you’re seeing right now.”