Franchitti shocked not to qualify

The Scot struggled with a loose car on his qualifying run, on what was expected to be familiar territory for him. Instead, he ended up lapping more than two seconds off the benchmark set by pole-sitter Kasey Kahne.

"We were just loose, very, very loose and that was it," Franchitti said. "The other guys complained about it a bit but I think we were maybe a bit looser even this morning. We felt we got caught out with it.

"I'm kind of shocked right now that we come to a road course and didn't qualify."

Franchitti was about to make his third race after sitting out six events due to his ankle injury. He denies that had anything to do with him not making the field, putting it more down to his lack of experience with the Cup cars on road-courses.

"Nothing to do with the injury at all," said Franchitti. "Probably a lack of experience on the road courses, what the balance of the car needs to feel like. As a team we still need to do better. Our best car was like 21st.

"I spoke to Juan (Pablo Montoya) and he had to really hustle like crazy to do that lap time and I don't have the experience to hustle it quite that much yet. As I say, as a group, we're working hard and we'll come next week at Loudon and try to do better."

Despite his disappointment, Franchitti vows to keep fighting in what is turning out to be a character-building rookie season for the former Indianapolis 500 and Indy Car Series champion.

"If you're going to give up this isn't the place to be," he said. "I'm not about to give up and I know these guys aren't so we'll just keep going.

"We felt last week we had a really good car. Unfortunately it ended early but the last two races we really felt like we were doing a good job, the whole crew. And we didn't do such a good job today as a group. Unfortunately that's the result."

Franchitti had finished last at Michigan a week ago due to an engine failure despite running well before that and now missing his second race of the season will put him further away from getting back in the top-35 in the owner standings, where his car ranks in 39th place.