IZOD IndyCar Series: Firestone Twin 275s

Topics:  Firestone Twin 275s

Dario Franchitti
June 11, 2011

FORT WORTH, TEXAS

THE MODERATOR: We'll get started here with our post race press conference. We're joined by race winner Dario Franchitti. We'll open it up to questions.

Q. What are you going to tell the team over the next hour?
DARIO FRANCHITTI: How long is it till the next race starts (laughter)?
My biggest thing is it depends where we draw. That will dictate so many things. It's a very strange feeling to be sitting up here knowing I have to go right back out. It's probably going to be the most subdued press conference in a while.
Yeah, whatever we draw is going to dictate a lot of stuff, setup, all kinds of things. The there's no doubt the Huggies car was good out front, I could get my way through traffic. But it was a handful in traffic, especially when lapped cars were blocking, doing all kinds of crazy stuff.

Q. Because of that, were you hustling the car out of pit lane so you could find out where you're going to be?
DARIO FRANCHITTI: Has nothing to do with me. As soon as the guys know, I don't know if the draw happens before or after, again, it takes to this whole drawing out-of-the-hat thing. If I knew I was starting last, I would know what to do, take the element of chance out of it.
But it's going to be a helluva race, whatever happens, the next one.

Q. You had a three- or four-second lead before the yellow. Obviously you weren't happy to have to deal with the restart.
DARIO FRANCHITTI: I think we got it up to 4.7 was the biggest number I heard, then the yellow came. I saw Dixie. That's a guy you don't want to see, especially with a side-by-side restart. He's pretty good at pretty much any track you track on.
I managed to get a good restart, was able to stay ahead of him, and at the same time he was able to stay ahead of Will. That was 1-2 for the team. Worked out pretty good.

Q. How bad were the marbles towards the end of the track? Which groove were you more comfortable with, top or bottom?
DARIO FRANCHITTI: If I could keep the car in the white line, I liked it down there. So that was working well for me. Then the problem was with lapped cars. Some guys would enter the corner on the higher groove. When that happens, it gets interesting quickly. The car liked to run the bottom, if I could.
But the trick here is to have a car that can run both lanes really.

Q. You mentioned the lapped cars blocking. But it looked like the drivers were giving each other more respect.
DARIO FRANCHITTI: I saw the 2 car put Tony down in pit lane. I would say there wasn't very much respect going on there.
It's the usual thing. There's some people you can track with very cleanly and there's some you can't. The good thing with experience, you learn who you can and who you can't.
So it's just part of racing.

Q. Dario, at least until that last lap, I heard you talk about Dixon being a threat on the double-file restarts. Did you feel you were at least I don't want to say protected, but you wouldn't get a good challenge from Scott until the last lap?
DARIO FRANCHITTI: You know, I think with Scott, he was a challenge anytime he felt was safe. More importantly, anytime he thought he could make it stick. You know what I mean? I think Scott's biggest problem was he couldn't challenge without opening the door for Will, which he didn't want to do.
I think he was in a bit of a tough spot there. Talking about guys you can race with, I can race with Scott inches apart, no problem.
THE MODERATOR: I believe we'll wrap it up. Congratulations, Dario. Best of luck in race two.
DARIO FRANCHITTI: Thanks.