Franchitti claims Indy crownposted in INDY03 | 10 | 2010

    TWELVE MONTHS after winning a nailbiting season finale in Florida to take the 2009 IndyCar Championship, Bathgate's Dario Franchitti returned to the one-mile Homestead oval to clinch back-to-back titles.

    The 37-year-old, who entered the weekend trailing his rival for the championship, Will Power, by 12 points, essentially sealed the title when the Aussie damaged the suspension on his Penske after he brushed the wall.

    Franchitti, who had started the race from pole position and spent the opening part of the race dicing for the lead with his Target Ganassi team-mate Scott Dixon, the backed off to cruise to his third title in four years.

    "It's difficult to take it all in at the moment," Franchitti admitted today. "I was happy battling it out with Scott at the front, but when Will brushed the Turn 4 wall on Lap 135, we decided to go conservative.

    "With only 65 laps left, we knew then that I only needed to finish 10th, but to be honest when I dropped back and went cautious trying to save fuel, things got a bit too action-packed.

    "After our final pitstop we were right at the back, and the cars ahead were three, four-wide, banging wheels and spinning right in front of me. To be honest, it was a bit too action-packed."

    But Franchitti, whose team-mate Dixon won the race by 2.7587secs ahead of Danica Patrick's Andretti, explained the significance of his victory would take some time to sink in.

    "I'm very proud of the achievement, winning three championships in four years," the Scot, who was 59 points behind Power with four races remaining and who also won his second Indianapolis 500 earlier this year, continued.

    "I believe the competition level in the series is going up. For whatever reason, we at Team Target, both Scott and myself, maybe didn't have the speed advantage we had last year. In some cases we had to work harder to finish in the top five at races.

    "So to come away with a championship after a season like that is very satisfying. After I finished 18th at Iowa because of the gearbox problems we had, it was a real struggle. 

    "But nobody on the Target team gave up.  We did our best every single week and we find ourselves with another championship, but the significance of it hasn't started to sink in yet.

    "It was pretty cool though. Great to be out there enjoying that feeling and that moment with my family, my friends, my teammates; it doesn't get any better than that."

    Jim McGill

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