Today’s IZOD IndyCar Series, Firestone Indy Lights and Mazda Road to Indy headlines:
1. Sonoma is Franchitti’s home away from home
2.  USF2000’s Hargrove earns Team Canada Scholarship
1. Sonoma is Franchitti’s home away from home:Â Dario Franchitti has confidence heading into the GoPro Grand Prix of Sonoma.
The Scotsman is in the midst of a four-race stretch in which he’s finished in the top four, including three podiums, and leaped from 12th to sixth in the championship standings heading into the Aug. 25 race at Sonoma Raceway.
 “It’s nice to show the results that we’ve deserved,” Franchitti said. “Earlier this year, when we did have fast cars, we weren’t getting the results. We’ve managed to turn it around a bit. Recently we’ve had the form to get that first win of the season. Sonoma is as good a place as any to try and get that done.”
The 12-turn, 2.385-mile Sonoma road circuit historically is one of Franchitti’s best. He won there in 2009 en route to the IZOD IndyCar Series title, has five podium finishes in seven starts and has never finished worse than eighth. But he stopped short of saying it’s his best chance to win with five races left in the season.
“You do a lot of work to hope you can be in contention to challenge for a win,” Franchitti said. “That’s the thing with INDYCAR. With the way the series is, you can’t go, ‘I’m going to go out there and win.’ You can’t do that.
“You can put yourself in position to challenge for the win, but it’s so competitive, you can’t go out there and say you’re going to win it. You can put yourself in a position to challenge, but that’s as much of a prediction as you could make.”
IZOD INDYCAR SERIES TOP 10 AT SONOMA
| Â | Driver |
Races |
Poles |
Wins |
Podium |
Top Fives |
Top 10s |
DNFs |
Average Finish |
|
Finishes |
|||||||||
| 1 | Helio Castroneves |
8 |
1 |
1 |
3 |
5 |
6 |
2 |
7.5 |
| 2 | Scott Dixon |
8 |
1 |
1 |
2 |
4 |
5 |
0 |
7.1 |
| 3 | Ryan Hunter-Reay |
6 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
2 |
2 |
15.2 |
| 4 | Marco Andretti |
7 |
0 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
2 |
15.1 |
| 5 | Simon Pagenaud |
2 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
11.0 |
| 6 | Dario Franchitti |
7 |
2 |
1 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
0 |
3.4 |
| 7 | James Hinchcliffe |
2 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
1 |
16.5 |
| 8 | Charlie Kimball |
2 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
23.5 |
| 9 | Justin Wilson |
4 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
3 |
0 |
8.3 |
| 10 | Tony Kanaan |
8 |
0 |
1 |
2 |
3 |
6 |
1 |
9.0 |
| PREVIOUS SONOMA WINNERS OUTSIDE TOP 10 | |||||||||
| Â | Will Power |
4 |
3 |
2 |
3 |
3 |
3 |
1 |
7.3 |
| Â | Ryan Briscoe |
7 |
1 |
1 |
4 |
5 |
5 |
2 |
6.7 |
| Based on IZOD IndyCar Series races 2005-2012 | |||||||||
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2. USF2000’s Hargrove earns Team Canada Scholarship:Â Cooper Tires USF2000 point leader Scott Hargrove was selected as one of two winners of the Team Canada Scholarship for 2013. Hargrove will represent Team Canada at the 2013 Formula Ford Festival in October at the Brands Hatch Circuit in England.
Hargrove, a native of Surrey, British Columbia, is in his first full season of Cooper Tires USF2000 Championship Powered by Mazda competition and has three wins in the Mazda Road to Indy entry level series. The 18 year-old, who leads Neil Alberico by 46 points with four races remaining, will be joined by a second Team Canada Scholarship driver to be named shortly.
“Once again it has been a difficult decision to select just one from the talented pool of drivers we had nominated from the USF2000 Championship,” said Team Canada Scholarship founder Brian Graham. “The interviews were all very good, and any one of the young finalists would have been worthy. In the end, Scott’s performance on track, as well as his off-track work and presence really impressed us. We were fortunate enough this season to attend three INDYCAR events and see first-hand the hard work each of the drivers do. It also gave us an opportunity to watch some young drivers who will be contenders next season for the Team Canada Scholarship.”
***
The next IZOD IndyCar Series race is the GoPro Grand Prix of Sonoma on Aug. 25 at Sonoma Raceway. The race will be televised live at 4 p.m. (ET) by NBC Sports Network and broadcast by the IMS Radio Network, including on Sirius and XM Channels 211, www.indycar.com and the INDYCAR 13 App for most smartphones and tablets. The next Firestone Indy Lights race is the Baltimore 100 on Sept. 1 on the streets of Baltimore. The race will be televised by NBC Sports Network at 1 p.m.
