How IndyCar crash ended Franchitti's 'handshake' Porsche LMP1 deal

At the 2013 Grand Prix of Houston, Dario Franchitti suffered a horrifying crash which brought the curtain down prematurely on his racing career. 

The three-time Indianapolis 500 winner had been battling with Takuma Sato when a collision suddenly launched his car against a wall and up into the catch fencing above. 13 spectators were injured in the accident and Franchitti was hospitalised with a broken right ankle, two broken vertebrae and a concussion which was later the cause for five weeks of specific memory loss, leading up to and including the crash.

Although he would eventually fully recover from all his injuries, the Scotsman announced his retirement from racing just one month after his horrific high-speed accident, leaving IndyCar a 31-time race winner and four-time season champion. But as he tells Motor Sport in the latest Centenary Stories podcast episode, the thought of leaving IndyCar had been lingering even before that day in Houston – with a deal to race in WEC and at Le Mans for Porsche in its mighty 919 LMP1 car already agreed in principles for 2015.

“There weren’t thoughts of retiring from racing,” he says. “But there were thoughts of retiring from IndyCar. We’d had that incredibly successful period from ’09 to 2012 with two [Indy] 500 wins and three championships. But I could feel my motivation just trailing off.

“And that’s very important to me. A lot of my commitment, my speed came from having that motivation. I didn’t want to be the weak link in the chain. I knew how hard everybody worked.

“I was talking to Porsche about the 919 program and I had met Wolfgang Hatz. The end of that conversation was a handshake and a ‘Right, let’s do something for 2015.'”

Unfortunately, Franchitti’s crash at Houston out paid to the agreement – Porsche’s 919 went onto dominate the 2015 World Endurance Championship, with six victories and a 1-2 finish at Le Mans without Franchitti.

Although disappointed to miss out, Franchitti maintained his concentration on the big picture. He had survived a crash that could have killed him and felt incredibly lucky, for others had not been so fortunate when competing in one of IndyCar’s most dangerous eras.

“[The pack racing] was horrible,” said Franchitti. “The good news was with the DW12s, that kind of racing finished. The bad news was the car was called the DW12 because Dan [Wheldon] died in the last pack race – the ultimate pack race – in Vegas.