Rahal criticises Clarke again

The American had blamed Clarke for his accident on his debut at Las Vegas, and he was angry with the way the Minardi driver defended his position at Portland.

"I had a bad start, but apart from that the race was going well," said Rahal. "It was difficult for me and it wasn't that great.

"Once we caught up to 'stupid Dan,' which is what I'm going to call him from now on, he just drove me off the road and that was that."

Rahal put two wheels on the grass as Clarke defended his first attack, and the Newman/Haas/Lanigan driver then went off the track again as he tried to make up the lost time.

"We tried a different approach in order to make up some positions then I messed up," he said. "It was just a tough day and I'm happy it's over."

Rahal believes that in future he needs to qualify higher up the order to avoid getting caught up with other drivers.

"We just need to make sure we start up front where we belong," he added. "We missed it this weekend but towards the end we started to get it.

"We did the third fastest lap (in the race) which shows that we had the pace, but just couldn't use it to our advantage."