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Andretti, Rahal at loss for words after tough Barber qualifying (VIDEO)

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Chris Jones-IMS/IndyCar Photo

Marco Andretti’s weekend speed went missing when it counted. Graham Rahal, meanwhile, has been unable to find it all weekend.

So are the woes of the two famous sons-of-legends after qualifying 13th and 21st for Sunday’s Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama (3 p.m. ET, NBCSN), as they look to bank a result in the third round of the Verizon IndyCar Series season at Barber Motorsports Park in Birmingham, Ala.

Starting with Andretti first, the driver of the No. 27 Andretti Autosport Honda had what on paper seemed to be his best chance to advance to his first Firestone Fast Six appearance since St. Petersburg 2014 after pacing Friday’s second practice and keeping up his recent trend of being fast on Friday.

“We just need to do it when it counts tomorrow. You know, it’s very important to qualify well here, so I’m pleased that we have the pace to hopefully be able to do that. But yeah, I mean, so far, so good. We just need to replicate it tomorrow,” Andretti said after Friday’s practice.

But by less than one hundredth of a second, Andretti missed out. With a best time of 1:07.5405 just adrift of Max Chilton in sixth in Group 1, Q1 at 1:07.5374, he was stuck in an unlucky 13th.

“It takes putting it together. A little too loose there but I should have got it in. With the margin this morning I should be in. This one hurts,” Andretti told NBCSN.

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Rahal, meanwhile, has felt the pain of only being a single-car Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing team this year up against the mights of all the other multi-car teams in the field. Whereas in the past two years, Rahal and RLL have overachieved, this year he’s said they just haven’t been able to replicate that success with the No. 15 Honda.

He’ll start 21st in a race where he was looking to go one spot better after a pair of runner-up finishes the last two years here. Of course Sebastien Bourdais won from 21st at St. Petersburg, but that marked the first time a race winner started last since Scott Dixon won from 22nd at Mid-Ohio in 2014. Rahal had three starts of 20th or worse last season (20th at Watkins Glen, 24th at IndyCar Grand Prix after a penalty and 26th at Indianapolis 500) but hasn’t started last in a race since 2014 at Long Beach, when he rolled off 23rd.

“We’ve got everything (wrong) this weekend. I had nothing else. There was no more speed in my car,” Rahal lamented to NBCSN. “I put in one miracle lap this morning and couldn’t get within half a second again. We just haven’t been very good this year and haven’t performed at a very high level. We can’t seem to get the tire to bite the road at all.

“For us as a single-car team it’s impossible. We don’t have anyone else to try anything different. St. Pete we struggled. Long Beach we struggled. Here it’s been a struggle all weekend. Something fundamentally might have changed. Starting last on merit, I don’t think I’ve ever done in my career.”

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