April 16, 2012   
 
Reigning IZOD IndyCar Series champion Dario Franchitti insists that he is not panicking about the difficult start to his 2012 campaign, despite another disappointing weekend at Long Beach.

 

The Scot started the weekend's race on pole position but was eventually classified 15th after suffering a late mechanical problem. Combined with a 13th-place finish at the season opener at St. Petersburg and a 10th at Barber, he is currently 14th in the standings, 75 points adrift of Will Power. But the Ganassi driver remains optimistic that his fortunes will turn around soon.

 

"What's the point in worrying about it?" he said. "I've said it too many times – you do your absolute best and some weeks it just all happens and some weeks it doesn't look good but things go your way, and some weeks are like today.

 

"We've had a lot of weekends where everything has just gone well for us, so sometimes you have to expect the opposite. Hopefully it ends very, very soon. We're going to keep working as hard as we can."

 

Franchitti conceded that he and the team are still some way short of feeling comfortable with the new car.

 

"All we can do is make the car as good as possible and do our best," he said. "We're still not right where we need to be with the car. I think we've obviously got some work to do with the engine, that area. So we'll see. We'll just keep plugging away."

 

The series continues at Sao Paolo next weekend.

 

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