Franchitti unhappy with pit speed penalty

The Scot stretched his second fuel load longer than anyone else, then used a lightning-fast final pit stop on Lap 60 to vault from eighth to third. But CART officials said Franchitti was clocked at 51 mph in the 50-mph limited pit lane, so they brought him in for a drive-through penalty on lap 63.

"My in laps were amazing," remarked Franchitti. "I did one in lap that was 1.1 seconds faster than my qualifying lap - a 75.4. That got us the advantage, and we got a great stop from the guys, which put us up to third. Then CART came up with this thing about us speeding in the pits."

Franchitti was extremely irate about the penalty after the race, because it cost him a podium finish.

"We ran the same speed limiter all weekend, and I watched the board myself," he said. "I saw it hit 50 and then bounce back to 48. I know exactly what happened there, and I'm not sure how the officials saw 51. That screwed up our whole race. But there's not much you can do. It's not this first time its happened and it probably won't be the last."

Stated Team Kool Green General Manager Kyle Moyer: "Somehow we must have had an overshoot on the pit lane rev limiter, meaning the electronics couldn't slow the revs down quick enough to keep it under 50mph."

Franchitti could offer no suggestion on how the situation could be handled differently in the future.

"Once they've made a decision right or wrong they have to go with it," he said. "It's frustrating because we did a good job to get up there to third, and to have that stuff happen is difficult to take. It's nice to get some points on the board, but it's disappointing because we know what we could have had."