Rahal enters history books with Houston podium.

Graham Rahal made Champ Car history as the youngest ever podium finisher after taking the chequered flag in second place behind team-mate Sebastien Bourdais at the Grand Prix of Houston.

The 18-year old rookie broke the top three in only his third Champ Car outing, erasing the absent Nelson Philippe from the record books in the process. While the Frenchman remains the youngest ever winner of a CCWS event, he was closer to his 20s when he made the podium for the first time.

Rahal built on his eighth place finish in Long Beach a week ago to mount a strong Houston assault, moving up from sixth on the grid thanks to a perfect first fuel and tyre stop which, combined with a mistake by one of those ahead of him, to lie third by half-distance. With a late yellow providing another refuelling opportunity, Rahal maintained position as he pitted the Medi Zone car for the final time and took advantage of Tristan Gommendy's different strategy to move into second when the Frenchman ran dry.

"It's a great result for the Medi Zone team, who have worked so hard since Vegas," the youngster admitted, "I'm very pleased that we've finally got the reward for that. We've been building ourselves back up since that first race and now we're where we belong.

"Sebastien was obviously the man to beat from the first session, but it was pretty obvious that we both had good cars this weekend. I was just learning and gaining more experience from him and, luckily, in the race, we put it together. We had some issues [in second qualifying], so we couldn't put a lap together but, all night, the team worked really hard. We sorted out our problems, came out here today, and right away the car felt really good. I was able to save a lot of fuel, keep pace with Oriol [Servia] and those guys and, at the end of the day, he had to pit a lap earlier than me."

Ironically, Rahal's best result came when famous father Bobby was flying back from Japan, having overseen his IRL team's activities at Motegi. Dad's absence, however, did not appear to faze Junior.

"It's a bit of a coincidence that he wasn't at my first professional race win and he's not here for this podium finish either," he smiled, "Perhaps he shouldn't come to any races in future!

"He knows I'm very proud to be racing and enjoy him being with me, so maybe he'll be at my first Champ Car race win. I hope that's not too far away. I'm out there with the aim of victory every time, and we're getting closer, although Sebastian is going to be very tough to beat."