With no schedule conflicts for either, Dario and Marino Franchitti will share an entry in the American Le Mans Series season finale – the No. 95 Level 5 Motorsports HPD ARX-03b in the P2 class with team principal and driver Scott Tucker.
Dario Franchitti is a veteran of HPD prototypes having raced several times with Andretti Green (Acura ARX-01a and b) and Highcroft Racing (Acura ARX-02a) from 2007 through 2009.
Meanwhile, Marino Franchitti spent the 2010 endurance season and the 2011 Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring with Highcroft (in the re-nomenclatured HPD ARX-01c for 2010 and P1-spec HPD ARX-01e for 2011) before running last year's Petit Le Mans with Level 5 in the cost-capped HPD ARX-01g.
Marino Franchitti in 2012 has sampled a diverse assortment of machinery – a Mazda RX-8 for SpeedSource at this year's Rolex 24 at Daytona (Grand-Am), the PR1/Mathiasen PC class entry in ALMS, and most prominently the Nissan DeltaWing at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. His luck has been subpar – despite two PC wins, Franchitti's car retired before he had the chance to drive it at both Le Mans and then with PR1/Mathiasen at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park in Mosport.
The Nissan DeltaWing will be back at Petit but with Gunnar Jeannette and Lucas Ordonez driving.
As for the Franchittis, they were both available as neither is participating in the Australian V8 Supercars race on the Gold Coast of Surfers Paradise, where a host of IndyCar drivers will be taking part.
“We're thrilled to have Dario and Marino Franchitti with us to close out the season,” Tucker said. “We've had a great year, and we are looking forward to another strong effort at Road Atlanta for Petit Le Mans. And, having the Indy 500 champion on your side is always a plus.”
Level 5 team manager Dave Stone said: "Marino did a really good job for us last year. Since we were looking at driver line-ups for this year, the thought about Dario came up.
"His Indy season is over for the year, and he had told his brother he might come down and hang out like he did last year. I just had the thought, 'Well, you're not racing and you're going to be here anyway, what would you think about driving with us?'"
It will be the second Petit Le Mans race for Dario, who has a Sebring P2 victory (2007) to his credit in four ALMS starts. Marino finished fifth in class last year driving the No. 055 with Tucker and Luis Diaz, and is a two-time P2 winner at Petit Le Mans – 2009 and 2010.
Tucker, Christophe Bouchut and Luis Diaz will drive the team's second car, the No. 055 HPD. Level 5, Tucker and Bouchut are currently in a tight battle for the P2 team and driver championships with Conquest Endurance and its duo of David Heinemeier-Hansson and Martin Plowman.
This will be the first time the two brothers share a car in ALMS competition. They drove together previously in the Daytona 24 Hours.
Because both Ryan Hunter-Reay and Simon Pagenaud have tested for Level 5, there were rumors either would be in this car for this race. Hunter-Reay was initially announced for the SRT Viper program in April, then further confirmed both on a conference call in July and on his Twitter page last week his commitment to the Viper. Pagenaud has a conflict and is racing in the Australian V8 Supercars race at Surfers' Paradise, Australia.
Both ran HPD prototypes at Sebring in March - Hunter-Reay with Level 5 and co-drivers Tucker and Diaz, while Pagenaud was in the Muscle Milk P1 HPD ARX-03a with Klaus Graf and Lucas Luhr.