Franchitti disappointed, fails to qualify at Sonoma

SONOMA, Calif. -- Dario Franchitti has led more laps at Infineon Raceway than any other IndyCar driver, pacing 62 circuits around the serpentine Northern California track. He ranks second among all open-wheelers in money won at Sonoma, his $235,700 in earnings bettered only by reigning Indianapolis 500 champion Scott Dixon. He has one pole and three top-five finishes in as many starts on the road course, including a runner-up result in 2006.

But none of that mattered on Friday, when Franchitti looked as if he'd never been on the racetrack before.

Lineup

Toyota/Save Mart 350

Pos.	Driver	Speed	Time
1.	K. Kahne	92.153	77.740
2.	J. Johnson	92.040	77.836
3.	Ku. Busch	92.005	77.865
4.	B. Labonte	91.943	77.918
5.	J. Gordon	91.923	77.935
6.	E. Sadler	91.843	78.003
7.	M. Ambrose	91.819	78.023
8.	R. Gordon	91.732	78.097
9.	R. Newman	91.519	78.279
10.	G. Biffle	91.448	78.340

• Lineup | Videos | Photos

He stalled out and needed to be pushed by a wrecker. He hopped a curb and rumbled through the dirt in practice. And then he lumbered through one of the slowest qualifying attempts of the 47 drivers vying for a spot in the Toyota/Save Mart 350, a lap that bested only those posted by David Reutimann and West Coast touring driver Brandon Ash.

"We were just loose, very, very loose and that was it," Franchitti said. "The other guys complained about it a bit but I think we were maybe a bit looser even [Friday] morning. We felt we got caught out with it. I'm kind of shocked right now that we come to a road course and didn't qualify."

The lap of 89.750 mph -- well off pole-sitter Kasey Kahne's 92.153 -- wasn't close to enough to get Franchitti, outside the top 35 in owner points and needing to qualify on speed, into Sunday's event. And it crystallized just how difficult this transition from open-wheel to stock cars really is. On this same track last season, his Chip Ganassi Racing teammate Juan Montoya recorded a career breakthrough, recording his first victory on NASCAR's premier circuit on the 1.99-mile track. That achievement shadowed Franchitti to Sonoma, leading some to wonder if another former open-wheeler from the same Ganassi stable could break through on the same track.

It was a completely unrealistic notion, and to his credit, Franchitti knew it. By this time last season, Montoya had a victory in a then-Busch road race, and top-10 finishes in Cup events at Atlanta and Texas. Speaking Friday afternoon before qualifying, Franchitti went out of his way to dispel any ideas of him doing anything akin to what Montoya did last year. The car is different. The racecourse is altered. And his NASCAR learning curve, as evidenced by his results this season, is so much steeper than his teammate's was even last year.

"I think a lot of things are different within the team," the Scottish driver said. "I can only judge my season by what I'm doing and what my team as a whole is doing. I think certainly I've become a lot more competitive relative to my teammates, and that's something I have to keep doing."

It's been a brutally difficult NASCAR indoctrination for Franchitti, the 2007 Indianapolis 500 winner. He missed five races after breaking an ankle in a crash at Talladega, failed to qualify for another prior to Infineon, and hasn't finished better than 22nd in the nine Sprint Cup starts he's made this year. The last two weeks, he said, he had the best car he's had this season. But at Pocono, he was involved in an accident and finished 41st. At Michigan, the engine expired and finished last.

It's been that kind of year. Sonoma seemed to bring some welcome familiarity, a road course for a driver bred on similar racetracks in Europe, a place where Franchitti's IndyCar was fast every time it touched asphalt. While Franchitti never won at Infineon in an open-wheel car, he was the first Indy Racing League pilot ever to drive on the track when he participated in a compatibility test for the series in 2004. He finished eighth in that circuit's inaugural Sonoma race in 2005, finished second behind Marco Andretti in 2006, and placed third behind Dixon and Helio Castroneves last year.

But those accomplishments came in cars that featured much more downforce and much more grip than the one he drives now. And it came on a different racetrack -- while the stockers take the far outside straightaway, come back through the esses, and turn in a long hairpin, open-wheel cars make the wide U through the center of the track known as a carousel, return via a chicane rather than the esses, and make a hairpin much shorter and tighter than the one the NASCAR cars do. Those differences are substantial; the Sprint Cup track is 11 turns and 1.99 miles, the open-wheel course 12 turns and 2.25 miles.

"I think any experience that I've had before," Franchitti said prophetically, "is not really going to be beneficial."

That much was evident in his problem-plagued practice session, in which Franchitti was only 35th on the speed chart. This despite a recent test on the road course at Virginia International Raceway that had the No. 40 team feeling reasonably confident coming to Sonoma. This despite the small improvements Franchitti had noticed in the cars in each of the past two weeks.

"It's definitely been much harder than I thought," Franchitti said. "I never expected it to be easy, but it's definitely been harder than I thought. But I've got a lot of optimism after the last two weeks, the way we ran on pace, not results, but certainly the pace. I can see things moving forward."

So could Montoya, his teammate. "It's a different Dario," the former Formula One driver said. "I think after he broke his leg and he saw people running his car and his car falling away from the top 35, it gave him the hunger to run well. Last week his engine blew up, but he probably had the best of the Ganassi cars. He was good in qualifying trim and good in practice, it was nice to see."

Franchitti doesn't exactly agree with that sentiment -- he was able to use the five-week break to see where he needed to improve, he said, and tried to put it to use once he returned to the car at Pocono. But the sense of urgency is always there. And after days like Friday, so is the frustration.

"If you're going to give up this isn't the place to be. I'm not about to give up and I know these guys aren't so we'll just keep going," Franchitti said. "We felt last week we had a really good car. Unfortunately, it ended early but the last two races we really felt like we were doing a good job, the whole crew. And we didn't do such a good job [Friday] as a group. Unfortunately, that's the result."