As the IndyCar season begins today in St. Petersburg, Fla., Dario Franchitti is there. When the engines start for the Indianapolis 500 in May, he will be there, too.
But this is not a normal season for Franchitti, a three-time Indy 500 winner and four-time series champion.
Franchitti, who has been racing cars since he was 10 in Scotland, was forced to retire last fall after he suffered two broken vertebrae, a fractured right ankle and a concussion in a crash that sent his car airborne into the catch fence at the Houston Grand Prix in October.
In an interview this week, Franchitti, 40, checked off the list of broken bones he suffered in his career: “Right ankle. Left ankle. Pelvis. Spine, twice. Ribs. Sternum. Fingers. I think that’s it.”
Another concussion, from which he still suffers aftereffects like memory loss, and a second broken back were too much for his doctors. He said he also had limited mobility in his ankle after having surgery.
“They painted a very graphic picture,” Franchitti said of his doctors. “These are guys I’ve trusted, guys I’ve known since I came to America. On every other occasion they’ve done everything they could to get me back as fast as possible. This time was different. They just weren’t budging.”
Soon after he told team owner Chip Ganassi of his doctor’s orders, they concocted a plan to have Franchitti stay with the team as an adviser. The new job, Franchitti said, has helped him come to terms with not racing.
Franchitti’s close friend and former teammate Tony Kanaan took over his No. 10 car with Target Chip Ganassi Racing, which also includes defending series champion Scott Dixon, Charlie Kimball and Ryan Briscoe. Franchitti has primarily been working with Kanaan to help him adjust to how the team works.
In testing, Franchitti has walked tracks with the drivers to discuss strategy. At races, Franchitti will be on the timing stand, listening to Kanaan’s intercom.
“I’m sort of giving away the secrets that even when we were teammates I kept some of them back,” said Franchitti, whose 31 victories in 265 starts put him eighth on the IndyCar career victories list. “T.K. got a few of my secrets and Dixon I gave most of them to. But I kept some of them back, but now I just give them all to the boys.”
Franchitti will be at the first two races of the season, today’s Grand Prix of St. Petersburg and the Long Beach Grand Prix on April 13, and he will spend May in Indianapolis to prepare for the Grand Prix and the 500. In fact, Franchitti will be quite busy at the Indy 500. He will drive the pace car for the race May 25, then go directly to the timing stand to help guide Kanaan, the defending champion, through the race.
After the Indy 500, Franchitti will rejoin the team for six or seven races for which he thinks his experience will be of most use.He said his role with Ganassi Racing was evolving with each trip to the track, but he noted that he did not have to reinvent the wheel: Ganassi has won five of the last six Indy-Car championships.
“I hope I can help the team improve their performance, and what that would look like, I guess, is one of the guys winning the 500 or the championship,” he said, adding, “If that happened, I would be a tiny part.”
Franchitti said he might consider working in television in the future, but for now he is enjoying slowing down. He moved back to Scotland and has more time to sail, to work on his car collection, to see friends and family, and to attend some races as a fan he has long missed, like the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the British Grand Prix.
“I put myself under a lot of pressure when I was racing, all the time,” he said. “I would be sitting here thinking about the race this weekend and what I had to do and how we’re going to do it, and what the issues were with the car, how we were going to sort those and on and on and on. That’s not part of things anymore. That’s good. That’s a real positive.”IndyCar Grand Prix of St. Petersburg lineup After Saturday qualifying; race today At St. Petersburg Street Circuit St. Petersburg, Fla.
Lap length: 1.8 miles (Car number in parentheses)
(14) Takuma Sato, Honda, 104.738.
(10) Tony Kanaan, Chevrolet, 104.241.
(28) Ryan Hunter-Reay, Honda, 104.152.
(12) Will Power, Chevrolet, 103.854.
(9) Scott Dixon, Chevrolet, 103.771.
(25) Marco Andretti, Honda, 102.923.
(34) Carlos Munoz, Honda, 102.215.
(98) Jack Hawksworth, Honda, 101.929.
(8) Ryan Briscoe, Chevrolet, 101.854.
(3) Helio Castroneves, Chevrolet, 101.785.
(17) Sebastian Saavedra, Chevrolet, 101.508.
(20) Mike Conway, Chevrolet, 101.31.
(11) Sebastien Bourdais, Chevrolet, 85.45.
(77) Simon Pagenaud, Honda, 89.535.
(7) Mikhail Aleshin, Honda, 85.363.
(19) Justin Wilson, Honda, 89.27.
(18) Carlos Huertas, Honda, 84.363.
(2) Juan Pablo Montoya, Chevrolet, 89.134.
(27) James Hinchcliffe, Honda, 41.945.
(83) Charlie Kimball, Chevrolet, 88.761.
FAILED TO QUALIFY
21.(15) Graham Rahal, Honda.
22.(67) Josef Newgarden, Honda, 88.625.
Sports, Pages 27 on 03/30/2014