Dario Franchitti

**George Dario Marino Franchitti**, MBE (born 19 May 1973) is a British former racing driver and current motorsport commentator from Scotland. He is a four time IndyCar Series champion (2007, 2009, 2010, 2011), a three-time winner of the Indianapolis 500 (2007, 2010, 2012) as well as a winner of the 24 Hours of Daytona (2008).

Franchitti started his career in the United Kingdom in the early 1990s, competing in Formula Vauxhall and Formula Three and was also the winner of the McLaren Autosport BRDC Award in 1992. After Franchitti did not secure a single-seater drive in 1995, he was contracted by the AMG team to compete in touring cars in the DTM and its successor – the International Touring Car Championship. Despite two seasons with relative success, the series folded at the end of the 1996 season, again leaving Franchitti without a drive. Mercedes placed Franchitti in CART in 1997 with the Hogan Racing team.

Franchitti spent six seasons in CART, where he won ten races with the Team Green squad that he joined in 1998; he failed to win a championship title, with a best final position of second-place in 1999, behind Juan Pablo Montoya in a tie-breaker. Team Green moved to the IndyCar Series for the 2003 campaign, with Franchitti remaining in the team. Franchitti's first season for IndyCar was disrupted by an injury, but won his first races the following season. His break-out year came in 2007, when he won the rain-shortened Indianapolis 500 as one of four victories in his route to a first career championship title in a final-race title decider with Scott Dixon. At the end of the season, Franchitti was named as BBC Scotland's *Sports Personality of the Year*.

After an ill-fated move to NASCAR in 2008 (which ended after half a season) Franchitti returned to IndyCar in 2009, driving for Chip Ganassi Racing. Franchitti won on his second start back in the series, and eventually took five wins as he won a second championship, again in a final race championship decider against Dixon and Team Penske's Ryan Briscoe. He retained the title in 2010, again with a final race championship win over Penske's Will Power; Franchitti's strong form on ovals – including a 2nd Indianapolis 500 victory – allowed him to overhaul Power by five points at the final race. His third consecutive and fourth overall title came in 2011, in which he battled Power for the championship the second time but the championship win ultimately was decided in favour of Franchitti, after the season's final race was abandoned due to a serious crash that resulted in the death of his close friend and former teammate Dan Wheldon. A new car was introduced for the 2012 season, in which Franchitti only scored a single victory – in the Indianapolis 500 – to become the tenth driver to win at least three Indianapolis 500s during a career.

On 6 October 2013, Franchitti was involved in a serious crash in the Grand Prix of Houston, when his car flew into catch-fencing after contact with the cars of Takuma Sato and E. J. Viso. Franchitti suffered two fractured vertebrae, a broken ankle, and a concussion in the crash. A month later, on 14 November, Franchitti announced his immediate retirement from motor racing on medical advice; he retired with 31 victories from 265 starts in his American open-wheel racing career, a tally which put him in a tie for ninth on the all-time wins list with former teammate Paul Tracy.

After his retirement, Franchitti became the co-commentator for Formula E's world feed broadcast.