Subscribe

Sign up for free

  • Get quick access to your favorite articles

  • Manage alerts on breaking news and favorite drivers

  • Make your voice heard with article commenting.

Autosport Plus

Discover premium content
Subscribe

Q & A with Dario Franchitti

Q. Dario, I can't imagine how many twists, turns, emotions, not only for you but your entire ownership team

Dario Franchitti: I would imagine at this point these guys have better stories than me, apart from Michael because he was busy today. These guys saw the whole picture, working all five cars, the ups and downs throughout the day.

What can I say? I'm in shock at this point, I must say. I'm definitely in shock. We started off the first stint of the race. I was really struggling with the car with understeer. Progressively we just worked on it, through each pit stop made it better. I was really happy with it.

When the red flag came out, one of those bittersweet moments there. I'm looking, seeing Tony leading the thing and looking like he's going to win it. I'm thinking, I think my car is good enough here, but at the same point my best friend's leading this race, my other two teammates second and third. You know, it's looking like a pretty good day for us, isn't it, at that point?

The selfish side of me is thinking I hope we go back racing because I think we can do something. At the same point, if the result would have stayed after the red flag, I wouldn't be anywhere as happy as I am now, but it was probably going to be the second best result of the day.

And then after the red, we had a cut in the right rear tire. I guess we ran over some carbon from the last accident. We had to pit. That wasn't our intention, but we had to do it for safety, I guess. That put us on the strategy that won us the race. Pretty happy right now about that (laughter).

Then the last, when we got into the lead -- first of all, I had to fight my way back through the pack. That was exciting. Ended up not only behind the guys one the lead lap but behind the lap cars, too. The car was really good. Managed to get through the traffic pretty quickly, get back up into contention. Then the strategy, our roll of the dice proved to be the lucky one.

We got in front, made a couple of good restarts, then the rain came. This place, it's been a roller-coaster month and definitely a roller-coaster day. I just, as I said, am in shock right now.

Q. Dario, on Thursday you described yourself and Scott Dixon as the invisible men. Now you both finish first and second. For being invisible, you certainly were seen quite clearly today.

DF: That didn't escape me. When we came down to what was going to be the last restart, I looked back and saw Dixon there. I thought, 'Hmm, this should make people sit up and take notice.'

We kind of flew under the radar all month - all year, actually, I think. But this whole month, it's an interesting thing to go through, the whole Indy 500, because you put all your eggs in one basket. This thing only comes along once a year. It really hit me today after Lap 113, when we thought the race was finished, that was it. We figured that was a chance gone for this year. You put so much into it.

If you saw the way our team worked together, how hard the engineers worked back at the shop, the mechanics, to get these cars quick and make the difference between that last year, if you saw the way the five drivers worked together, the five sets of engineers, it's bloody impressive. I'm really, really proud to be a part of it.

Any one of the cars today could have won this race, and it came down to, you know, there was some luck involved. That's not to sort of diminish what we've achieved today. That's the job that this team did: they put five cars on the grid capable of winning. We put ourselves in right place and things worked out.

Q. Dario, how does it feel to have won this race burning a hundred percent renewable fuel in your tank and how well did it perform in your car?

DF: I've had absolutely no problem with ethanol. I felt it worked really well. We were getting pretty good fuel mileage under the yellows today. I was quite happy for that. We knew the rain was coming. We were just hoping we had enough fuel to make it there, and we did.

Q. Dario, any kind of extra satisfaction or maybe a feeling, you talked about it being a roller-coaster month, to get a win after the way pole day finished up for you? I'm sure this kind of makes up for all of that.

DF: I made a kind of a joke with TK, actually. We were in the engineering office, sitting there. I turned to TK. He was looking stressed because he had to wait out to see if the track was going to dry. I turned around said, "It's your turn now." I won't tell you what his reply was (laughter).

As I said, it's not really sunk in yet. The two things that really give me the satisfaction of today's race were coming -- improving the car from where we started and then coming from the back through the field again. That felt good.

Q. Dario, who made the decision to fully fuel? Was it you, John Anderson? Were you feeling extra lucky after your dad got a hole-in-one this month?

DF: That's a good point. Michael did ask, had my dad used up all the family luck for the month? My dad got a hole-in-one last Wednesday at the Brickyard Crossing. First hole-in-one. We're pretty proud of him.

When we took the tires, we only had to put I think 5 gallons in the car because we pitted pretty soon before the red flag came out. It was a no-brainer to fully fuel the thing.

Q. Toward the end, Dario, was there a bit of anxiety hoping the rain would come, knowing the rain was on its way? I assume you knew it was on its way. Talk about the desire to be in this position when the rain finally hits.

DF: The one comment that sticks in my mind was John Anderson saying on the radio, "The rain's eight blocks away." I'm like, "C'mon."

When you get in that position, we knew we had to pit one more time, we pretty much were sure everybody else had to pit one more time, too, it was going to come down to a dogfight. There's a lot of strong cars, especially, as I say, my teammates, the Ganassi guys, the Penske guys. So whatever happened, it came down to that dogfight, it was going to be hard. So I was hoping for the rain.

Q. Dario, you said at the end of the 2006 you thought you had a little bit more left in you. Sam Hanks famously retired from this race in Victory Lane in 1957. Do you think there's enough left in you, and did this race give you a little more?

DF: Yeah, when we sat down, the four of us actually sat down in California, we were just talking about the following year. I think we just won at Fontana, hadn't we? I was feeling good about things. I wasn't sure. I was just being honest. I wasn't sure how much more I wanted to do. Then when the fairly average year we had last year, my motivation came back stronger than ever.

I don't see me quitting any time soon. There's a good few years left now and a championship.

You know, one of the things that really helps is having a 20-year-old teammate. Seriously. To see life through -- TK and I are old married men now. To see things through Marco's eyes is pretty cool. I've had some great teammates in my life. Really had some fantastic teammates, but I don't think we'll ever have this situation again. It really is a privilege to be part of this team.

Q. Dario, before you said it was extremely difficult to move through the pack. You did it after you had to change the tires. Any difficulty coming through?

DF: Yeah, it wasn't easy. There were some interesting moments. When a car goes into sort of a four-wheel slide at 220 miles an hour, it catches your attention. One lap it's pushing, the next lap it's loose, the next corner in fact. I was lucky in the fact that the Canadian Club guys gave me - fixed the car throughout the race and gave me a great car all month to allow me to do that.

I want to recognize the whole engineering staff, Andretti Green Racing, for giving us great cars, especially Allan McDonald and Dave Seiffert, my guys, my engineers, and also John Anderson for calling the race. Every bump in the roller-coaster this month, they lived it with me. Just really proud - really, really proud of them.

Q. Dario, all through the month you and Tony, the whole team, worked very closely together as you said. You were very close on setup. You were saying before the race how much different you were going to have to go from Tony. How much different did you have to go and how much work did you have to do to really dial the car in as the race went on?

DF: I was very surprised how much work because the car seemed to work the last week of practice and also Carb Day in a range of conditions. We went out there today and had a huge push in the car. We had to work very hard to get rid of that. Big understeer. We really managed to do it.

I was very impressed with the job the engineers did there. Split-second decisions. They made the right choices. They were talking to me; I was making adjustments in the car all the time. It was going in the right direction which really helped us because coming back through the pack at that point I thought I was going to have to pick off one car at a time here and see where we end up. It all worked out well.

Q. Dario, the look on your face in Victory Lane kind of defined of the word "disbelief." Can you take us through what went through your mind as you pulled off the helmet and were getting out of the car and teammate one by one coming up to you?

DF: I knew TK was going to kiss me. I knew that. That was a given (laughter). I was really happy to see Marco, see that he was OK. When I saw the accident, I saw the aftermath of the accident, I was on the radio, Is he OK? Is he OK? They said, "Yeah, he's fine." Just to see him there was really a big relief.

I think the disbelief started, first thing, when the rain started. Oh, it's raining pretty hard here, guys. The downpour started. They came on the radio, checkers next time by. I'm thinking it's going to be difficult even to get there because the car was aquaplaning, it was so wet out there.

Then across the finish line, it was just disbelief coming into the pits. I came in really slowly. First of all didn't want to crash the car on the in-lap. The crowd stayed throughout the rain delay, got absolutely soaked. I just wanted to enjoy that moment, just have a little time to think.

Q. Dario, by my arithmetic 42 years ago a fellow by the name of Jim Clark won the race. Could you talk about being the whole Scottish aspect and following in that great tradition?

DF: Yeah, that was one of the reasons I was so pissed I didn't win in '05. I was so upset because it was 40 years since Jimmy Clark had won it. Jackie Stewart came over, watched the race. My old boss, obviously one of my heroes. It was looking good for a while. It didn't turn out.

It all kind of made sense when I turned around and looked at the trophy. I saw some of the names on the trophy today. Then I was in awe, I really was, to see the great names that are on there, see some of the great guys that should be on there. It's a humbling experience, put it that way.

Q. Dario, Alex Lloyd won the Freedom 100 the other day. You're the second British driver to win in three years. Do you think will encourage more British drivers over here?

DF: I hope so. I hope so is the answer to that. I've been over here now 10 years. Obviously, Dan has made a hell of an impact here. Alex Lloyd is doing a good job. It's good to see. So the more the merrier, definitely.

Q. When is the last time either of you won a race because of a flat tire?

DF: It technically wasn't flat. It was a cut tire. I've lost one here because of that I think. Second year here -- the biggest problem is when there's a wreck, there's tiny shard of carbon lying around the track, and they're razor-sharp. Before the safety crew can get a chance to clean them up, you try to avoid them. You end up driving over some of them sometimes. That's one of the side effects.

But, yeah, I wanted to keep using it but the Firestones guys are, "No."

Q. Dario, on the historical note, a few years ago you won the race at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in car 27. That was a special moment of its own. Maybe it's unfair, but can you compare the two historical/emotional wins?

DF: It is the 27th of May, isn't it? That's pretty cool. It's difficult to compare wins. Each one's special. The Indy 500 is the pinnacle of my career at this point. It's massive. It's awesome. Told you I wouldn't make much sense today (laughter).

Q. Dario, back to Jim Clark, he's kind of like a hero or something. Don't you have a Jim Clark room or something?

DF: Yeah, we finished restoring or almost finished restoring an old house in Scotland. What are we going to do for all these bathrooms, bedrooms. We made one of the rooms Jim Clark room. I have all these Jim Clark memorabilia. Robin Miller gave me some fantastic Jim Clark pictures this morning. Thanks, Robin, they were awesome. We have a Jim Clark room in the house at home.

I think he's a hero for any Scottish driver, and really one of the best drivers in the world ever. Only time I ever went and picked out tile. I had to get the tile to match his helmet (laughter).

Q. It seems like you're the good guy of the sport. Everyone that has been interviewed after the race is telling about how really happy they were for you to get this win. What does that mean to you?

DF: It's awesome. It's really nice. There's one thing, you go out on the track and you race each other very hard. A good friend of mine Greg taught us that. We'd go out, race each other as close and hard as we possibly could, then afterward go and have some fun. We seem to manage that quite well in the paddock as a whole, but we certainly manage it within our team.

Yeah, it's a good atmosphere to go racing in.

Q. Dario, when you came over here, you came as a road racer. You raced sedans, had a reputation. Maybe you didn't quite get the respect as an oval racer. Does today put an end to that?

DF: I don't know. I hope so (laughter). I mean, we've managed to win on every type of track now. Certainly the first year I struggled a little bit on the ovals, but then I got more and more comfortable.

I think the short ovals, we won at Milwaukee and stuff like that, but I really -- I enjoy the challenge of the short ovals, and this place is particularly difficult. But, yeah, not quite sure what to say about that one.

Q. One thing we should do is congratulate a championship team, an Indianapolis 500 winner, and a gentleman right here who is a champion by any measuring stick you ever want to use.

DF: Thank you.

Be part of the Autosport community

Join the conversation
Previous article Franchitti no longer the invisible man
Next article Franchitti still in state of disbelief

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

Sign up for free

  • Get quick access to your favorite articles

  • Manage alerts on breaking news and favorite drivers

  • Make your voice heard with article commenting.

Autosport Plus

Discover premium content
Subscribe