Dario Franchitti, #27 Canadian Club Dallara/Honda/Firestone
“The Canadian Club car was pretty good today. There is so little difference here between the top-five drivers. If we can get the car right and do our job a little better it can make all the difference for us this weekend.”
From PaddockTalk.com:
Practice for the Motorola Indy 300 at Infineon Raceway Sears Point got underway today on the 2.26-mile, 12-turn undulating circuit. From the start, top position on the speed charts traded back and forth between Helio Castroneves and Dario Franchitti, with the Brazilian pipping the Scot in both morning and afternoon sessions to earn the choice of going first or last in tomorrow’s qualifying line.
Castroneves, who had to sit out the first 25 minutes of the two-hour morning test session following a meeting with Brian Barnhart over his antics in Kentucky two weeks ago, quickly rose through the ranks and was quickest, both in the morning session (108.193 mph) and this afternoon (108.158 mph).
“I was driving my butt off out there,” said the ebullient Castroneves. “This place is very challenging; it’s like a roller coaster. We hit the right spot on the setup but tomorrow, the times will improve,” he noted. Although Castroneves thought the track would be “way better this afternoon, it was different. The grip was changing from one end of the car to the other.” His best tour came on the ninth of 12 total laps in the second, quicker group of cars.
Franchitti ended up second in both the morning (107.861 mph) and afternoon (107.971 mph). Hoping his spate of poor luck at Michigan and Kentucky is over for now, the championship leader since he won the Indianapolis 500 in May – only eight points ahead of Scott Dixon – would “prefer the 65-point lead I had” before things stopped going his way.
Although Franchitti hasn’t got a championship yet – and all four of his closest pursuers have made that jump – he is firm on the conviction that he just needs to “have fun and do the best we can as we have all season long. Good luck stops eventually and this has, no question, been the luckiest year of my career.”
Tony Kanaan finished third for the day and improved his position from morning practice, when he experienced a few incidents that included a mid-session spin at the very popular second turn. Kanaan ended up with third this afternoon and for the day, with his 10th of 13 laps at 107.764 mph, nearly half a mile per hour better than his earlier best (107.222 mph). Kanaan is third in points, 52 behind Franchitti.
Last year’s winner here, Marco Andretti came fourth for the afternoon with his afternoon lap of 107.737 mph, using his 12th or 13 laps to make that speed. 2003 IRL champion Scott Dixon came fifth for the day, based on his morning lap of 107.727 mph).
This is the inaugural event for the IndyCar Series at the newly-constructed Iowa Speedway.
What: Iowa Corn Indy 250, Round 8 of the 2007 IndyCar® Series Where: Iowa Speedway, Newton, Iowa When: Sunday, June 24, 2007 Television: ABC, 1 p.m. (EDT)
Who: #27 Canadian Club Dallara/Honda/Firestone driver Dario Franchitti
"After the weekend off, I am looking forward to heading to Iowa. I always enjoy going to new tracks. Iowa is a track similar to Pikes Peak and Richmond, which are both tracks that I enjoy, so it should be an exciting weekend. We are heading into a stretch of five consecutive races so it will be important to get off to a good start in order for us to fight for the championship."
Who wants to go with me damn it? And oh yeah, by the way, I need a ride. I'll tell you about the Jasper County Jail in Newton on the way. You do not want the tour I got.
Warning! Do not act up at the track! The jail is right next to it. They will put you in it. And the judge is a hanging judge.
Canadian Club driver Dario Franchitti finished seventh at the XM Satellite Radio Indy 300 Saturday at Homestead-Miami Speedway. After running as high as third, a fueling problem during the first pit stop sent Franchitti back in the field where the Canadian Club car did not run well. Franchitti struggled with the car throughout the night despite running in the top ten the entire race. Franchitti's seventh place was the second highest finish for Andretti Green Racing. Teammate, Tony Kanaan took the checkered flag in fifth.
"I m very disappointed. It was a very difficult night in the Canadian Club car. I started off and I felt like we were in very good shape. I moved my way to the front and then we had a little problem with the fuel cell in the first stint. That put us back in traffic a little bit and then we really struggled. As soon as there was a car in front of us we just didn't have the grip. We struggled all night with grip and both with understeer and oversteer. I just fought my way as hard as I could to the finish."
The IndyCar Series returns to action next week at the Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg on April 1. The event will be televised live by ESPN, beginning at 2:30 p.m. (EDT).
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