Franchitti wants back into top 35

The Scot needed a good result in order to maintain the benefit that he enjoyed at the start of his Sprint Cup series campaign, as his car was among those guaranteed the start for each of the first five races, based on last year's car owner standings.

After finishing 36th at Bristol, Franchitti's car is ranked now 38th, and it's the current standing that come into effect from the next event onwards, to determine which drivers have a spot on the field secured for every race.

"It's tough," Franchitti said. "It's tough to be learning everything that we're learning racing against these type of people. These guys know what they're doing so it's very difficult for us to even stay in the top-35 right now.

"But hopefully by the middle to the end of the season we'll have figured it out."

Franchitti's cause was not helped by the fact that he lost his brakes early into Sunday's 500-lap event. This meant he had to run a race for survival, but even doing his best to stay out of trouble he couldn't escape being involved in a couple of incidents.

Affected by his car's condition, he got loose on lap 190 entering turn three and made slight contact with Jamie McMurray, and then the pair made further contact at the end of the front straight, causing a six-car pile up between turns one and two.

The No. 40 car already had some bodywork damage following the crash, but 90 laps later Paul Menard tapped the back of Franchitti's car when the Scot lifted early before the corner as he continued to struggle with his car's brakes. The impact sent him into a spin, which caused a further caution.

"We lost the brakes," Franchitti said. "First hundred laps or so we ran actually pretty well and we lost the brakes and we found a problem with it because the pedal was on the floor the whole time and I was pumping it and it would never come back.

"They think they found something with it but from that point on I was a passenger. I couldn't brake in any of the corners so I was having to lift real early and use the front tires to slow the car down. It was just a vicious circle."

The former IRL IndyCar champion and Indy 500 winner will now need first to qualify for races and then once being in the field hope for better results that allow him to move up in the owner standings and regain his qualifying benefits.

Franchitti's best Cup result thus far has been a 32nd place at Fontana.