Scots rally ace finds his form

Bathgate Champ Car ace and defending pole-sitter Dario Franchitti clocked the third-fastest lap for today's Miller Lite 200 in Lexington, Ohio. The 27-year-old Scot covered the 2.258-mile road course in a time of 1min 5.971secs, an average speed of 123.218mph.

"The car really isn't too bad," the Team Kool Green racer said. "The engineers have done a pretty good job with it but we have to look at some other areas for the race. We had a problem consistently that we haven't managed to get to the bottom of yet, and that has hurt our performance.

"We had to work really hard to get what we got today. I've got to start winning some races if we expect to be a factor in the championship. This race is one we can do very well in, so we can't let the opportunity go by."

Franchitti is eager to complete the unfinished business from last year. Twelve months ago he started from pole position and led for the bulk of the 83-laps before he was handicapped by a slow puncture.

"We had everything going for us last year, winning the pole and then leading the most race laps, but we fell a little short of getting the chequered flag," he said on Saturday.

And the Scot, whose 2000 season has been scuppered by an ill- handling car and a run of miserable luck which sees him stand 11th in the CAT FedEx Championship, 62 points behind leader Michael Andretti, believes the next four races will be crucial in the outcome of the series.

"We're not too far behind to be ruled out of winning the championship yet, but it would be some comeback," Franchitti added. "The next four races are on road and street circuits which I love and we're ready for the challenge.

"The goal is to continue to give everything we've got, put a string of strong races together and work our way back up the standings. A lot can change over the next three or four races." Andretti, second a fortnight ago in Chicago, leads the title race by 22 points from Roberto Moreno with eight of the 20 rounds remaining.

Gil de Ferran took the provisional pole with a fast lap of 1:05.347 (124.394 mph), tying the track record set by Franchitti last year. De Ferran's teammate and fellow Brazilian Helio Castroneves was second, only 15 one-thousandths of a second behind with a speed of 124.366 mph.

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