Motor Racing: Fastest of learners

Andrew Baker talks to Scotland's latest racing certainty, Dario Franchitti

The racing driver Dario Franchitti is something of a cosmopolitan figure. His name sounds Italian, he is best known in Germany and he has just landed a plum drive in the American CART racing series, where the last European driver to make a big impact was Nigel Mansell, when it was called Indycars. So it comes as something of a surprise when you call him on his mobile telephone and a gentle Edinburgh- accented voice answers and assures you that just now he is back home, visiting his family in Scotland.

His exotic name may not be well-known at present, even to motor racing fans, but Franchitti is confidently tipped by the experts to make a big impression in the American series en route to his ultimate ambition, a drive with a top grand prix team. "I only want to do Formula One if I have a realistic chance of winning," Franchitti said. "I don't want to do it just to say 'Hey, I've been an F1 driver' and sit around at the back of the grid. There are a couple of CART drivers who have turned down F1 rides, so I'm not the only one who feels that way. If one of the top four or five F1 teams came in for me, well we'd have to see, but for now I'm committed to CART and I'm going to give it my best shot."

He has a good pedigree, having climbed the celebrated "staircase of talent" established by Jackie Stewart and his son Paul to groom future grand prix drivers. The Scotsman, who is now 23, won the McLaren/ Autosport Young Driver of the Year Award in 1992, which brought him to the attention of Mercedes. "We liked his appearance and his attitude," Wolfgang Schattling, a spokesman for the German giant, said.

So Franchitti passed from one finishing school to another, as a member of the Mercedes junior team in the German touring car championship. It was quite a step from a little, relatively basic, Formula Three car into a large, heavy, technologically complex racing saloon car. His opponents were no longer youngsters, but vastly experienced drivers.

"Dario was amazing," Andy Hallbery of Autosport said. "He took pole position in his first race, and won his third." Mercedes were impressed. "He was quick on the spot," Wolfgang Schattling said. "Our decision to take him on was justified."

But at the end of last year the series folded and Franchitti was unemployed. "I went to Mercedes and said that I'd love to do the CART series and they tried their hardest to fix it up for me." When a company with Mercedes' clout tries to fix things up, they get fixed: Franchitti will drive for a vastly experienced team owner, Carl Hogan, in a Reynard car with, of course, a Mercedes engine. "I've definitely got the right equipment," as he modestly puts it.

So now Franchitti faces another change of gear, from the big saloons to 200mph single-seaters which race on grand-prix-style tracks and on 180mph average speed ovals, where concrete walls are inches away. He has already sampled the latter in testing at the Homestead oval in Florida, venue of the first race on 2 March. "It's pretty daunting at first," he admitted. "Those walls are very close, and you're running at 200mph so that can be quite a surprise when you get to the end of the straight." So he'll be taking it easy to begin with? "No. I never take it easy." His new team have taken him, and, adapting the name of the rock group REO Speedwagon, have nicknamed him "Dario Speedwagon". They expect him to be a big hit.