Background and career
George Dario Marino Franchitti (born 19 May 1973) is a British motorsport commentator and semi-retired motor racing driver. He won the IndyCar Series Drivers' Championship in 2007, 2009, 2010 and 2011; the Indianapolis 500 in 2007, 2010 and 2012; and the 2008 24 Hours of Daytona driving for Andretti Green Racing (AGR) and later Chip Ganassi Racing (CGR). Franchitti began kart racing at the age of ten and had early success before progressing to car racing at the age of seventeen, winning the 1991 Formula Vauxhall Junior Championship and the 1993 Formula Vauxhall Lotus Championship. In 1995 and 1996, he competed in the Deutsche Tourenwagen Meisterschaft and the related International Touring Car Championship for the AMG-Mercedes team, winning two races. Franchitti debuted in Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART) with Hogan Racing for the 1997 season. The following year, he joined Team Green and finished third in the championship with three victories. After tying Juan Pablo Montoya on points and winning four fewer races than Montoya, Franchitti finished second in the 1999 season. His form declined over the next three years but he won four races. In the Indy Racing League in 2003, Franchitti joined the renamed AGR team but injury limited him to three races that year. He won two races in the 2004 and 2005 seasons, finishing fourth and sixth overall. Franchitti won his first IndyCar Drivers' Championship in 2007 with four victories, including his first Indianapolis 500 win, before joining CGR for the following year's NASCAR programme. In 2009, he returned to IndyCar, winning three consecutive championships from 2009 to 2011, and 12 more races, including the 2010 Indianapolis 500. Franchitti's form deteriorated during the 2012 championship as he struggled to adapt to a new car but he won his third Indianapolis 500. Following contact with Takuma Sato's car in the penultimate round of the 2013 season, Franchitti sustained two fractured vertebrae, a broken ankle and concussion, bringing his racing career to an end. Franchitti competed in 265 races in American open-wheel car racing, winning 31 and finishing on the podium 92 times. After retiring, Franchitti became an advisor and driver-coach for CGR, as well as a co-commentator and driver pundit on the all-electric Formula E racing series' television world feed. He has been inducted into the Long Beach Motorsports Walk of Fame, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Hall of Fame, the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America the Scottish Sports Hall of Fame, the Canadian Motorsport Hall of Fame, and was named the 2007 BBC Scotland Sports Personality of the Year.
George Dario Marino Franchitti was born in Bathgate, West Lothian, Scotland, on 19 May 1973. He is the son of Inverness-born tourist board employee Marina Franchitti, and ice-cream parlour owner and amateur racing driver George Franchitti. He is of Italian descent; three of his grandparents originate from the town of Cassino. His younger brother Marino, his cousin Paul di Resta and his godson Sebastian Melrose are also racing drivers. Franchitti has a sister. When Franchitti was eight years old, he moved to Whitburn. He was educated at Edinburgh's private Stewart's Melville College, where he did not feel at ease due to its traditionalism.
When he was three years old, Franchitti was given a Honda-powered go-kart. His wish to become a racing driver began when his father took him to the West of Scotland Kart Club and other kart tracks as a child. When he turned ten, Franchitti started kart racing; his first race ended after two laps due to engine failure. He started racing at the West of Scotland Kart Club and tracks in the north of Scotland, and he tested karts at Knockhill near Dunfermline. In 1984, at the age of eleven, Franchitti won the Scottish Junior Championship; he also won the British Junior Karting Championships in 1985 and 1986. Franchitti retired from the 1987 Karting World Championship final after colliding with Luca Badoer. In 1988, he won the Scottish Senior Championship and was runner-up in the 1989 British Senior Karting Championship. Franchitti raced part-time in the 1990 British Senior Kart Series. Overall, Franchitti won more than one-hundred races and twenty karting titles. In 1990, racing driver David Leslie's father suggested to Franchitti he join Leslie's team and work on his cars at races. Aged 17, Franchitti began racing a single-seater vehicle for David Leslie Racing in the inaugural Formula Vauxhall Junior Championship. Franchitti's father remortgaged the family home to pay for his son's racing. Franchitti won the championship with four victories, three in the final three rounds, and three podium finishes. Paul Stewart Racing (PSR) offered Franchitti a Formula Vauxhall test after a team member observed him driving. Team owner Jackie Stewart promised Franchitti if he drove for PSR, Stewart would find funding from Scottish sponsors. Stewart became Franchitti's informal coach, teaching him how to race more quickly and more consistently. Franchitti finished fourth overall in the 1992 Formula Vauxhall Lotus Championship, with multiple second and third-place finishes for PSR. Later that year, he won the Autosport BRDC Award, which included a test in a McLaren MP4/10B Formula One (F1) car at Jerez at the end of 1995.
The following year, Franchitti became a racing school instructor, and earned money running circuit days for BMW and Nissan. He returned to the Formula Vauxhall Lotus Championship for PSR in a single-seat Vauxhall-powered car, winning the championship at Brands Hatch in August of that year with three races remaining. Franchitti had six victories and four podium finishes, and was named the series' Driver of the Year. The same year, he raced in the Silverstone round of the British Formula Three (F3) Championship, finishing fifth in a PSR Reynard 933-Mugen Honda. Stewart promoted Franchitti to the British F3 Championship in 1994, hoping he would later progress to F1, and he was expected to challenge for the title. Franchitti finished fourth overall with 133 points in a PSR Dallara F394-Mugen Honda, a single victory at Silverstone and six top-three finishes after errors prevented him from challenging for the title. Franchitti also finished twelfth at the 1994 Masters of Formula 3 and sixth at the 1994 Macau Grand Prix.
Franchitti did not have enough money to progress to Formula 3000 and did not race in F3 for another season as expected because he did not want to incur more debt. Mercedes-Benz signed him to its junior team just in its attempt to recreate its Young Driver Programme in the German-based Deutsche Tourenwagen Meisterschaft (DTM) and the related International Touring Car Championship (ITC) series after their first option, Giancarlo Fisichella, wanted a one-year deal that would leave him the option of driving for Minardi in F1. Franchitti drove a Mercedes C-Class V6 for the AMG-Mercedes team, Mercedes-Benz's sports-car competition division. Franchitti competed in the 1995 DTM and the 1995 ITC. His fourteen-race DTM season put him fifth in the Drivers' Championship with two pole positions, four podium finishes and 74 points. During the ITC season, Franchitti won his first touring car race at Mugello, twice finished second at Donington Park, and third at the second Estoril round for third in the Drivers' Championship with eighty points. For the 1996 ITC season, he stayed with AMG-Mercedes and finished fourth in the Drivers' Championship with 171 points and five podium finishes, and won the first Suzuka round.
At the end of 1996, the ITC folded due to escalating costs and Franchitti told Ilmor boss Paul Morgan he wanted to compete in the US-based Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART) series. Jackie Stewart sent a letter of recommendation to trucking mogul Carl Hogan, who telephoned Mercedes in Germany, and the company assigned Franchitti to drive the No. 9 Reynard 97i-Mercedes-Benz car for the single Hogan Racing customer car squad in the 1997 CART World Series. Franchitti rejected the offer of a seven-year contract from McLaren owner Ron Dennis to test McLaren's F1 cars during the week while he competed in CART at weekends and act as a replacement driver in case of injury. Franchitti debuted at the season-opening Grand Prix of Miami. Starting from thirteenth, he crashed after running wide to allow race leader Gil de Ferran to lap him. In the following race, Franchitti achieved his best result of the season, finishing in ninth place at the 1997 Sunbelt IndyCarnival. He scored points in three more races, and at the Molson Indy Toronto, he took his first CART pole position. Before the season's final race at California Speedway, Hogan dismissed Franchitti due to their strained relationship, which was due to Franchitti joining Team Green for the following season. Franchitti was replaced by Robby Gordon. Franchitti was 22nd in the Drivers' Championship with 10 points and was third in the Rookie of the Year standings. In late 1997, Franchitti signed a two-year-minimum contract to drive for Team Green from the 1998 season after impressing team owner Barry Green with his abilities. Franchitti had six top-ten finishes, including a second-place finish at the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach, and qualified in pole position at the Rio 400, the Molson Indy Toronto and the Miller Lite 200 in the season's first 13 races. At the season's 14th race, the Texaco/Havoline 200, Franchitti took his first series victory, and the first Champ Car win for a Scottish driver since Jim Clark in the 1965 Indianapolis 500. Three weeks later, Franchitti won the Molson Indy Vancouver from his fourth pole position of the season. After finishing fourth at the Honda Grand Prix of Monterey, he led every lap of the rain-shortened Texaco Grand Prix of Houston in his third and final victory of 1998. Franchitti finished second at the Honda Indy 300 but lost the runner-up spot to Jimmy Vasser when his engine failed at the season-ending Marlboro 500, which Vasser won. Franchitti was third overall and scored 160 points. Before the 1999 CART season, Franchitti signed a two-year contract extension with Team Green through to the end of the 2000 season; he did not want to be indefinitely retained and wanted keep his options open for the future. Franchitti's manager Craig Pollock advised him to remain in CART to gain more experience and he rejected an offer to join Stewart Grand Prix in F1. Franchitti took seven top-ten finishes in the first ten races. He led all of the Molson Indy Toronto to win and took the championship lead from Juan Pablo Montoya after winning the ITT Automotive Detroit Grand Prix two races later. Over the next five rounds, Franchitti won four top-ten places and pole position in the Miller Lite 200. He won the season's penultimate round the Honda Indy 300 from pole position to enter the season-ending Marlboro 500 nine points ahead of Montoya. Franchitti had to finish third in California to win the title but would lose on countback if he and Montoya finished with the same number of points. Franchitti finished the race tenth and Montoya fourth, ending the season with the same number of points as the latter, who was crowned champion because he won seven races while Franchitti had only won three.
