Dario Franchitti has revealed that he was set to make the jump from IndyCar racing into a Porsche LMP1 drive at the 2015 24 Hours of Le Mans, only for injury to not only end that dream but end his competitive racing career.
A huge crash at Houston towards the end of the 2013 IndyCar season saw him forced to retire on medical grounds, but the four-time IndyCar champion has revealed that he was set to race in the greatest endurance race of them all if he had not been for his injuries.
Franchitti admitted he had been to Porsche’s base in Weissach and discussed taking the drive with LMP1 Team Principal Andreas Seidl, and was set to walk away from IndyCar at the end of 2014.
“I’d have liked to have done Le Mans, that was the big dream,” said Franchitti at the Autosport International show on Saturday. “I had a great drive lined up for 2015 there, actually in LMP1.
“I’m a big Porsche fan, literally my phone is full of pictures of Porsches and my garage has a couple too, and I love the brand. I became friends with Wolfgang Hatz who is the head of R&D there and I talked to him a bit about it and he said to come along.
“So I went to Weissach and had a big top secret meeting with Andreas Seidl and the guys there. I said I wanted one more chance at Indy, I wanted to do 2013 and ’14 and then I said I’d be done with IndyCar and then I wanted to come and he said that was fine, and it fitted in with their plan. It just didn’t happen.”
