It was a great pleasure to watch Dario Franchitti score a thoroughly deserved first Indy 500 victory on Sunday. Franchitti becomes only the second Scotsman to win the 500, following in the footsteps of the great
Jim Clark, who famously won the race back in 1965.
Like Clark, Dario is a very civilised, thoughtful man, a well-rounded person with a tremendous passion for the sport. He’s a great reader as well and knows as much about the sport’s history as any racing driver I’ve ever met.
Franchitti and Tony Kanaan have been team-mates at Andretti-Green for three years, and both enjoyed sharing a similar set-up at Indianapolis this year. Both were extremely competitive in the 500, as were team-mates Marco and Michael Andretti and Danica Patrick.
“Tony and I are running the same set-up,” Dario commented two weeks ago, after qualifying at Indy, “We’re working very closely together. We always do - all five of us, and all four for the rest of the season - we always try and work as closely as possible. But, this month, Tony and I have been shadowing each other. Normally, there’s a bit of a change, here or there, for what the driver likes in the way the car handles. One might like a more loose car than another, but we’ve been extremely close all month.”
In the middle of the race, Franchitti had to make an unscheduled stop to change a cut tyre which forced him to work his way back through the field.
“That was exciting because we were behind all the guys on the lead lap and the lapped cars too,” he said, “But the car was really good and I was able to get through traffic fairly quickly and get back into contention. The two things that really gave me satisfaction from today’s race were improving the car from where we started and then coming from the back through the field.
