Impressed by his showings in a range of sportscars, Andretti Green Racing snapped up Scotsman Marino Franchitti to partner long-time team member Bryan Herta in its XM Satellite Radio-sponsored Courage-Acura LC75 next season.
After another trans-Atlantic flight to prepare for his new challenge, Franchitti took time out to speak to
Crash.net Radio about the AGR deal.
Q:
First of all, congratulations on securing one of the plum seats for the 2007 American Le Mans Series season with Andretti Green Racing to drive the LMP2 prototype.
Marino Franchitti:
Thank you very much, I’m very excited about the deal and can’t wait to get started next season.
Q:
How did the deal come about? You are quite well known in sportscars and there is the family link to AGR through Dario, but how did it come together.
MF:
It has been going along for a quite a while and we did the deal a little while ago. I’ve known the guys at AGR for a few years as you mentioned with my brother racing there, and when there was a rumour of them starting a sportscar team I said ‘keep me in mind guys’. I talked to Robert Clarke at Acura as well and I was hoping they would have a programme so it was a case of talking to everyone and eventually it all came together and they phoned me up and said ‘we want to have you in the car’. It was certainly a happy day for me.
Q:
You’ve made your name in sportscar racing. When you started out was that the direction you wanted to go in or were you tempted to follow Dario in single-seaters?
MF:
I did single-seaters for two years and in 2000 I was doing Formula Ford in the UK. At the end of the year, Porsche Cars GB asked me to be a junior driver and they were going to give me a fantastic opportunity. As my brother always said to me, to be a professional, you have to be paid and at that moment I didn’t have a budget to go to Formula Three or anywhere over Formula Ford – it was kind of the end of the road for single-seaters. It was a great opportunity with sportscars and I have never really regretted that decision, I didn’t have any options in single-seaters and sportscars seem to suit me. For me it was an easy decision to make at the time and, as I said, is one that I have never regretted.
Q:
You’ve raced in various series around the world but how does landing a seat with a team like AGR in the American Le Mans Series rank with the other rides you’ve had?
MF:
It’s way above anything I have ever done, mainly because of the level of the programme, not just in terms of the car itself but also in the level of development because it is a new programme and has the backing of a factory like Acura. It is an amazing opportunity to learn a huge amount, not just from the team, but also from the manufacturer on how to develop, hopefully, a winning formula. It has been fantastic so far, there is a lot more information and lot more options on where you go with the car.
Q:
Andretti Green has a very good reputation in open-wheel racing in the States. Are you slightly concerned about their lack of experience in sportscars or do you think that, with their background and with the manufacturer support from Acura, they will be able to pull it all together?
