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Change of luck Franchitti wins CART Molson Indy
Posted: Monday August 16, 1999 01:49 PM
TORONTO (CNN/SI) -- If the third time's the charm, then Dario Franchitti has conquered Turn 1 in Toronto. The first challenge on the 1.755-mile, 11-turn temporary street course downtown had bitten him for two straight years before Sunday's victory in the Molson Indy. "It's about time I finished a race here," he said. "I kind of made it difficult on myself." As a rookie in 1997, Franchitti started on the pole and promptly crashed with Bobby Rahal in Turn 1. Last year, he started from the pole again, led 76 of 95 laps, then crashed -- where else? -- in Turn 1 after his brakes failed. He eventually finished 20th. "When I came back here this year, I drove around the course on my scooter and when I was in Turn 1, I thought, `I love it, but it seems to hate me,' " Franchitti said. Not on Sunday, though. This time, he passed pole-winner Gil de Ferran for the lead three turns into the race and stayed out front to the finish. "Gil braked a little early and I saw a chance to pass him," Franchitti said. "I went for it and then just drove away." Asked if he was thinking during the race about his previous bad luck in Toronto, Franchitti said, "I did think about it on the start when I got hit from behind [by Christian Fittipaldi]. But that was the most eventful part of the race. "After that, I wasn't thinking about it at all. When we're out there, it's all business. I put it out of my head as soon as possible." On the way to his first victory of the season and the fourth of his career, Franchitti said his only worry was a balky gearbox that never really became a real problem. "Other than my gearbox, there weren't any issues all day," he said. "Actually, I was pretty cautious all weekend. I wasn't running 100 percent out there until I had to. I was giving it some margin for error." As for Turn 1, a tight right-hander, Franchitti joked, "On the cooldown lap, I thought I might just spin there in sympathy, but I just slowed down." Paul Tracy made it a sweep for Team Kool Green by holding off Fittipaldi to finish second, 2.624-seconds behind his teammate. "It was Dario's race and it was a great day for our team," the Toronto native said. "It's like a win for us, getting second-place points." Tracy battled most of the day with Fittipaldi, the winner the previous week at Road America, but finally got by him in the pits when the leaders made their final stops during a caution period on lap 61. "It was a fight the whole day," Tracy said. "Christian and I were together for what seemed like 100 laps. We just fought and fought and fought. Then I beat him out of the pits. "When I talked to Barry on the radio," he said, referring to team owner Barry Green. "He said that barring a problem for Dario, it was going to be his day and just to finish and take the points." Franchitti, 26, one of the preseason favorites to win the CART FedEx Series championship, vaulted from fourth to second in the standings and moved within seven points of series leader Juan Montoya after 11 of 20 races. Montoya, a 23-year-old rookie from Colombia, failed to finish for the second straight race. At Road America, Montoya was dominant before a broken gearbox ended his run. This time, he fell behind when he was penalized for running over Tony Kanaan's air hose, then crashed with Michel Jourdain Jr. as the two battled for ninth place on lap 60. "This weekend was a disaster," Montoya said after finishing a career-worst 20th. Other title contenders Michael Andretti and de Ferran also wound up out of the points. Andretti finished 26th in the 27-car field when he drove into the rear of Greg Moore's car and broke his right front wheel on lap 12. De Ferran lost ground when he was penalized for hitting Fittipaldi's tires on his way out of his pit on his final scheduled stop. He wound up 19th after driving through debris from Moore's car and hitting a concrete barrier. Fittipaldi finished third, moving to third in the standings, 10 points behind Franchitti, one ahead of teammate Andretti and eight in front of fifth-place de Ferran. Roberto Moreno finished fourth, followed by Max Papis, Adrian Fernandez, Scott Pruett, Jimmy Vasser and Al Unser Jr.
The race was slowed by five full-course caution flags for a
total of 25 laps, slowing Franchitti's average speed to 85.897 mph.
The Associated Press contributed to this report. | |||||||||||||||||||||
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