Two years after he won the Indianapolis 500, Bathgate’s Dario Franchitti will again start America’s Blue Riband race on Sunday, May 24 from third on the 33-car grid.
But the 35-year-old Scot, who lapped the famous Indy500 2.5-mile superspeedway at an average of 224.010mph in his four-lap qualifying run, admitted he was desperately disappointed not to start on pole position.
“We caught a gust of wind on one of the flying laps and that basically screwed us,” Franchitti said. “I was only 0.854mph away from given my Target Ganassi team pole position, and that gust of win cost us big time.
“We just didn’t quite have enough today, despite how hard we pushed the car. And believe me we were pushing because we had some pretty interesting moments out there, but we couldn’t make it any faster.
“Of course winning the race is the ultimate goal, but I am really gutted not to have got pole position. It would have been fantastic to have on my CV. But we’re still on the front row and we made the best of what we had in the Target car.”
While Franchitti outpaced his Ganassi team-mate, 2008 Indy500 winner Scott Dixon, who qualified fifth, it was the Penske duo of Helio Castroneves and Ryan Briscoe who locked-out the top two slots.
Castroneves, who only returned to the sport a few weeks ago after he was cleared of tax evasion charges, claimed the third Indianapolis 500 pole of his career.
The Brazilian, who won back-to-back Indy500s in 2001 and 2002 as well as taking pole in both ‘03 and ‘07, beat his Aussie team-mate Briscoe to the top spot by just 0.781mph with a fastest lap of 224.864mph.
Franchitti meanwhile was quietly confident his team and race car will have the strategy and the pace to claim his second Indy500 victory.
“Both the Ganassi crew and I have been over the course before and we know exactly what it takes to win the race,” Franchitti, who became the first Scot to win the classic American race since the legendary Jim Clark in 1965, continued.
“We’ve a few more test sessions before the race, but we’re pretty well where we want to be with the car. Now all we have to do is turn up on the 24th and do the business. I won from third on the grid two years ago, so maybe that’s a positive omen.”
JM