Motor sport: Franchitti brothers forced to quit at Sebring

Mar 26 2009 by Eric MacKinnon, West Lothian Courier

WEST LOTHIAN’S sportscar superstar Marino Franchitti made a struggling start to the new season at the Sebring 12-hour race in Florida on Saturday.

Franchitti was behind the wheel of his new Mazda with team-mates Butch Leitzinger and Ben Devlin but their new supercar suffered teething troubles.

Butch drove the first leg of the endurance relay race and was soon eighth overall and holding second place behind the LMP2 Lowes Acura.

Butch ran a steady stint before handing over to Marino, but it was clear from the lap times of both Butch and Marino that the team were taking a conservative approach to the race — the ultimate aim being to make the 70 per cent distance in order to score important championship points.

The No.16 sister Dyson Mazda was already experiencing problems having fallen some four laps behind the No.20 car driven by Marino.

But Marino ran his double stint at a steady pace, clearly not pushing the car at all, especially when suffering a down-shift issue later in his stint which the team corrected in the pit stop.

When Marino handed over to Ben it was about a quarter of the way into the 12-hour race distance.

Ben’s lap times were consistent with those of Marino and Butch, and though they weren’t making any headway they were still running.

It was now Butch’s turn for the second round of stints, but after barely an hour he reported an engine misfire, and came straight into the pits.

It was now just five hours and six minutes into the race, but 45 minutes later both No.16 and No.20 Dyson Mazdas retired with mechanical problems.

Marino admitted it was a nightmare start to the new campaign.

He said: “Of course we’re all disappointed we couldn’t make it to the end of the race, but Sebring is one of the toughest challenges in the world of sportscars, as it proved today.

“As new as the programme is, there are always going to be these teething troubles as we develop the package but we learned a lot during this race that will help us going forward.”

Elder brother Dario also took part in the race but his Patron Highcroft Acura failed to finish after transmission failure.

The Bathgate race ace was taking part just before his own season in IndyCar gets underway and he admitted to feeling the effects of the gruelling race.

He said: “Towards the end of my last stint I started to get a really bad cramp in my back on the left side — an old injury.

“I struggled a little because it was difficult to apply the required brake pressure but we were far enough into the window for me to hand over to David.

“But I’ve had a blast this week and I love coming to Sebring.”

The race was won by a Scot with Allan McNish driving into the record books for his third victory at the famous 3.7 mile circuit.