Motorsport: Marino resilient after collision

Aug 13 2009 by Eric MacKinnon, West Lothian Courier

BATHGATE motorsport superstar Marino Franchitti was back on the podium this week after another super display on the ALMS circuit this time at Lexington, Ohio.

Franchitti helped secure third place but it could have been even better for the West Lothian raised speedster as his Mazda was forced to retire after a crunching collision with a Porsche GT3 Cup car.

It had been a rather ominous start to the weekend for the Franchitti’s LMP2 Dyson Racing Mazda where a tracking problem and an oil leak curtailed track time on Thursday.

But that was sorted out for Friday’s practice and both the West Lothian driver and co-driver Butch Leitzinger were happy with the car.

At the start, Butch was behind the wheel and made up a place immediately and on the second lap he moved to third overall when their sister car was called in for an infringement.

Minutes later a GT3 Cup car caused a long yellow caution which continued for almost half an hour. Butch held station finally handing the car over to Marino on lap 50 with 1.5 hours remaining.

When Marino exited the pits he was seventh overall and third in LMP2 class. Two laps later he moved to sixth overall and by lap 53 he was up into fifth behind three LMP1’s and his old adversary, the LMP2 Lowes Acura.

Marino gradually inched his way up to the back of the Acura, and on lap 62 saw his chance and overtook the Lowes car to lead the LMP2 class.

The Scot was left sitting just behind the three leading LMP1 contenders, but when Clint Field in his LMP1 Lola pitted 10 laps later Marino moved to third overall.

As the pits opened on lap 79 all the lead cars darted in for their final fuel stops. The Lowes Acura pit, situated almost at pit out, made a very fast stop and exited in front of the lead LMP1 Acura of Gil de Ferran.

This meant the Lowes car regained one lap of the two that had opened up between the LMP1 and LMP2 lead cars thereby gaining a whole lap on the No.20 car.

Knowing the Mazda had greater overall speed than the Acura, Marino chased hard at the same time being pushed by the Graf Porsche Spyder making its LMP2 ALMS debut. Marino pushed to within 30 seconds of taking the lap back with the Porsche Spyder half a second behind.

As Marino sliced his way through a group of slower GT2 cars, he was hit hard by the wayward Porsche. He managed to continue but less than a lap later it was clear the hit had caused terminal suspension damage and Marino was forced to retire the car 10 minutes from the end.

Marino had done enough to seal a third place LMP2 podium and as the No.16 sister car had also been forced to retire Marino and Butch remain second in the LMP2 Driver championship points.