Double IndyCar champ Dario Franchitti showed his intentions of adding a second Indy500 win to his burgeoning CV when he finished the final pre-qualifying session at the 2.5-mile Indianapolis Superspeedway just 0.2237secs off provisional pole.
The 36-year-old from Bathgate, hoping to repeat his 2007 Indy500 win when this year’s race goes ahead next Sunday (May 30), powered his Target Ganassi round the high speed oval in 39.7588s.
“We’ve been fast all week, so I’m comfortable with where we are with the car’s development,” Franchitti said today. “We know the car’s very, very fast in race trim, and it isn’t exactly slow in qualifying trim.
“I think we have a strong chance of getting pole position. Having said that, as you can see from today’s timings it’s very close. The top 10 were covered by only 0.3148s, and 0.4485s covered the top 20. Really, almost anyone in that top 20 could get pole.”
Franchitti, who started the week of practice seven days ago by topping the timesheets, was outpaced yesterday by the Penske of provisional polesitter and current IndyCar leader Will Power.
The Aussie clocked the fastest time of the month so far, 39.5351s, an average of 227.646mph, to edge out second-placed Fazzt of Alex Tagliani by just 0.0231s.
Franchitti’s Ganassi team-mate and former winner Scott Dixon was fourth, just behind the Penske of Aussie Ryan Briscoe. Last year’s winner, Brazilian Helio Castroneves, took ninth in the final Penske.
The session was interrupted for almost 30mins when former F1 racer Takuma Sato had a heavy accident at Turn 2. The Japanese driver eventually got out of his severely damaged KV car unaided, but was taken to Methodist Hospital for precautionary x-rays having complained of back pain.
JM