Gregor Grant: Dario Franchitti

The former McLaren Autosport BRDC Award winner took the title in his final year of single seater racing in America, as he will switch full-time to NASCAR for 2008.

"The Indy 500 was a shock," said Franchitti. "I tried so hard to win the thing, it's such a long race and so many things can go wrong. I was in shock for about a week after.

"In the final race, I wasn't conceding the title on the final lap, I was trying to size Scott Dixon up for a pass. Being a Scotsman, I had saved a load of fuel.

"I had that little bit of a draft, and just as I pulled alongside he ran out of fuel and we nearly had another one of those big wrecks."

Franchitti had two aerial crashes during the 2007 season, and he admitted that the accidents made him question his career options.

"The wrecks came five days apart," he said. "It was a fairly gentle accident until the roll-hoop snapped. I was really lucky.

"The second one was the big one, it was a mistake, I didn't know the race had finished. Again, I was very very lucky. The dent is still in the wall, and that one really hurt.

"The first one wasn't a problem, the second one was. I got back in the car, and it felt a bit strange.

"The good thing was that it didn't affect the championship too much. My first thought when I crashed was that maybe I should stop doing this."

Jackie Stewart, who helped Franchitti during the early years of his career, also praised his countryman.

"Dario has had tremendous success," he said. "He has been a great ambassador for Scottish motorsport, and in America they love him, and his trousers!"

Franchitti raced in Champ Car and the IRL for a total of 11 years, and before this year his strongest season had been 1999, when he tied on points with Juan Pablo Montoya but missed out on the CART title.