Bathgate’s Dario Franchitti showed he has the pace to battle for pole position for this year’s Indianapolis 500 tomorrow when he lapped the famous 2.5-mile superspeedway in 40.1499secs.
The 2007 Indy500 winner, driving this year for Target Ganassi, was just 0.2347s off the fastest time set by Marco Andretti in the Andretti Green car Franchitti powered to victory two years ago.
“Qualifying is going to be very, very close again this year,” Franchitti, admitted today. “It’s the average speed over four laps, so it’s tough, but I think we’ll all be a bit slower than Scott Dixon’s 226.336mph average from last year.
“The important thing is we know we already have a fast car, so we don’t have to do too much ahead of Saturday’s qualifying. Of course it would be fantastic to get pole position, it’s what everybody dreams of. But winning the race is the most important thing to me.”
Franchitti, who became the first Scot to win America’s Blue Riband event since the legendary Jim Clark in 1965, was fifth-fastest and immediately behind his Ganassi team-mate Dixon.
Despite qualifying taking place tomorrow, this year’s 93rd running of the Indianapolis 500 doesn’t take place until Sunday, May 24.
JM