In many ways Kanaan is the team’s spark plug, always thinking and probing, alive with ideas. Over the years Franchitti and he have grown to be close friends as well as team-mates. The pair work extremely well together and are co-team leaders with young Andretti and Danica Patrick benefiting from their friendship, knowledge and experience. And of course, at Indy, team owner Michael Andretti made it a mammoth, five-car operation.
“Having five cars in the team is a real advantage for us the way we use it,” Kanaan commented at Indianapolis. “We know working together for so long, apart from Danica who just joined us, that we can divide things between us and we cover a lot more bases this way. Dario and me are working really well together. We made the big steps at Indianapolis and then Michael contributed to the tuning of the setup with his experience and Marco always tried to contribute.
“The biggest thing at Indianapolis and any other place is to be calm and not to get wound up by other people’s speeds. You’ve got to go by what you feel and do your own thing and eventually you see where you are compared to other people’s work. That was the biggest jump we made over the years and I think that comes with experience.”
Kanaan says winning the IRL championship three years ago helped him grow to a new level. He says the same process has also helped the team this year. “I think after I won my championship I matured a lot more just because when you become a champion it takes a big weight off your back,” he remarked. “I’m not saying that you relax, but that championship is there and nobody’s going to take it away, and you mature with that.
“And I think that’s the biggest difference this year for us as a team. We’ve matured and we said we weren’t going to worry about speeds. We’re not going to worry about what Wheldon, Dixon, Sam and Helio are doing. Let’s do our own thing and as long as it feels right we keep doing it, and that’s what we did.
