No one will be looking for a better rebound this season than Chip Ganassi Racing’s Dario Franchitti.
The four-time IndyCar Series champion finished in seventh place last season, the lowest Franchitti has ranked since 2006.
Franchitti won the Indianapolis 500 for the third time in his career but it was the lone highlight in a season filled with disappointment.
The 39-year-old Scottish driver will aim to return to his winning form in 2013 and avoid another miserable year.
KEYS TO SUCCESS: Franchitti already had a proven track record prior to joining the Ganassi team but the two sides combined for one of the most dominant pairings in recent history. Franchitti and co. won a total of 12 races and three consecutive championships from 2009-11.
Among active drivers, only Sebastien Bourdais has won as many races as Franchitti and the two are tied with Canadian Paul Tracy in seventh place on the all-time career wins list with 31 victories.
Although 2012 was an off year, Franchitti was still strong in qualifying and earned pole position in three consecutive races (Milwaukee, Iowa and Toronto). He also started first at the Long Beach and Edmonton races after the pole-winning drivers there were assessed grid penalties.
Franchitti showed at Indianapolis he still has the fastest car on the track when all things are on his side. Another victory at Indianapolis will tie Franchitti with A.J. Foyt, Al Unser and Rick Mears for first in career wins at the historic track.
He also managed to salvage the season with podium finishes at Sonoma and Fontana and that might be enough to give the team hope in 2013.
ROOM TO IMPROVE: It’s not so much where Franchitti needs to improve but where things went wrong last year. The season opener in St. Petersburg, Fla., where Franchitti ran out of gas during the final lap, was a harbinger to a frustrating season.
Although Franchitti started first in five races, he wasn’t able to convert any of those opportunities into wins. Franchitti’s car gave him problems in Texas, where he qualified second but finished 14th, three laps behind race winner Justin Wilson. His difficult ride was particularly problematic at Iowa, where Franchitti’s engine blew up during the warm-up laps and he was out of the race before it even started.
More bad luck struck in Toronto when Franchitti entered his pit box just a little off the mark and his team couldn’t get the fuel hose close enough to his car, costing him valuable time in the race.
CANADIAN CONNECTION: Franchitti has had tremendous success in Canada with six wins and eight podium appearances north of the border. He has earned pole position in Toronto four times and has three victories at the street track. Franchitti won at Vancouver from pole position in 1998 and was victorious at the event again in 2002, dedicating the win to the late Greg Moore. He won at Montreal in 2002 too and never finished lower than sixth in Edmonton.
OUTLOOK: Expect Franchitti to bounce back from a disappointing 2012 campaign and continue to move up on the all-time career wins list.