Dario Franchitti Accident: What Happened? All you need to know about how the Scottish former racing driver accident happened.
George Dario Marino Franchitti is a Scottish former racing driver and current motorsport commentator who was born on May 19, 1973, in Bathgate, United Kingdom.
He is a four time IndyCar Series champion and a three-time winner of the Indianapolis 500.
Not only that, but he is also a winner of the 24 Hours of Daytona.
Franchitti began his career in Britain in the early 1990s. He competed in Formula Vauxhall, Formula Three, and was the winner of McLaren Autosport BRDC Award 1992.
Franchitti was unable to secure a single-seater driver in 1995, so the AMG team contracted him to race in touring cars in both the DTM and its successor, the International Touring Car Championship.
Franchitti was again left without a driver after the series collapsed in 1996, despite two seasons of relative success. Mercedes placed Franchitti with the Hogan Racing team in CART in 1997.
Franchitti spent six seasons in CART. He won ten races with the Team Green team that he joined in 1998.
However, he did not win a championship title. His best finish in 1999 was second behind Juan Pablo Montoya in a tie-breaker.
For the 2003 campaign, Team Green switched to IndyCar Series. Franchitti remained in the team. Franchitti won his first IndyCar race in the following season, despite being injured.
In 2007, Franchitti won the rain-shortened Indianapolis 500, one of four victories on his way to his first career championship title.
He also finished third in the final race title decider with Scott Dixon. Franchitti was named BBC Scotland’s Sports Personality of the Year at the end of his season.
Franchitti made a disastrous move to NASCAR in 2008, which ended after half a year season. He returned to IndyCar for Chip Ganassi Racing in 2009 and won five races to win a second championship. This time, he defeated Ryan Briscoe from Team Penske.
In 2010, he retained the title with a win in the final race over Penske’s Will Power. Franchitti was strong on ovals, including a 2nd Indianapolis 500 win, which allowed him to surpass Power by five points.
He won his third consecutive overall title and fourth consecutive in 2011. In 2011, he faced Power for the title the second time.
However, the championship victory was decided in favor of Franchitti after the season’s last race was cancelled due to a serious accident that claimed the life of Dan Wheldon, his friend and former teammate.
For the 2012 season, a new car was introduced. Franchitti won only one victory in the Indianapolis 500 to become the tenth driver to win at least three Indianapolis 500s during a career.
Dario Franchitti Accident: What Happened?
Franchitti was involved in a serious accident at the Grand Prix of Houston on October 6, 2013. His car crashed into the catch-fencing following contact with E. J. Viso’s and Takuma Sato’s cars.
Franchitti sustained two fractured vertebrae and a broken ankle in the crash. He also suffered a concussion. Franchitti declared his immediate retirement from motor-racing on medical advice a month later.
He had 31 wins from 265 races in American open-wheel racing, which was a tie for ninth place on the all-time wins list with Paul Tracy, a former teammate.
Franchitti was retired and became co-commentator of Formula E’s world feed broadcast.
Source: Kingaziz.com