A biography for Dario Franchittihasn’t been written yet.
“I stayed out of the Hollywood limelight wherever I could. That was never something I was comfortable with. That was something that had to be dealt with rather than something I wanted.”
“Im absolutely a car collector. Im a car fanatic.”
“Cart is not as sanitised as formula one. You just get in the car and get on with it. And it is more fun.”
“I always bump into people that Ive met. Not great friends, but if I bump into somebody Ive known and I wont recognise them. It can be embarrassing at times.”
“I didn't realise how tightly wound I was until I retired because I would think about racing pretty close to 24 hours a day, seven days a week. I really focused.”
“I've driven with a few broken body parts over the years.”
“I really thought my racing days were behind me but it is tough to give up something that has been a part of my life for so long and that I love so much.”
“Ive had a wonderful time, a great career. I wouldnt call it a career; it was what I loved to do. I never called it a job; its been an absolute privilege.”
“When I was a kid I was only interested in going fast and I still love that feeling of speed. But when you start to go racing, it's winning that's important.”
“Then realising and being told that I wasn't going to be able to race anymore, that was a whole different stage. It's that old thing of you don't know what you've got, right? Pretty quickly I realised how much I was going to miss doing what I do.”
“You think about the dangers, you accept them and you go about your job, it is only if you start to think about it too much in the car that you'd have a problem.”
“I am proud of what I was able to do, the races I was able to win and the championships, but that had as much to do with the teams and the people I worked with as well. Its not something you just do on your own; it's a whole army.”
“It's a pretty stark choice: you either deal with the dangers of the sport or you get out of the car.”
“Cars are my weakness, what can I tell ya? I like to buy cars.”
“I was a big 'Pole Position' fan. I've been playing games for a long time.”
“Some days I end up thinking I really wish I was in the car - ike the Sonoma test, the boys tested it and I really missed driving the car there. But there are other days that I dont miss it.”
“Anybody that knows me knows that my job was making cars go fast, and mostly breaking them as opposed to fixing them, so it was good fun to get involved and to help the teams.”
“Losing friends, it's the hardest thing that has ever happened to me and I still got back in the car after crashes. I'd get back in with broken bones and it just seemed easy, there was the drive to do it.”
“I get dressed in the same way. Its not a superstition, at least I tell myself its not. Its more a way of getting that brain in gear to do that same thing. I get in the car the same way. Even the guys who are strapping me in the car get their own brains ready to go to work.”
“I put myself under a lot of pressure when I was racing, all the time.”