Punishing Toronto Takes Its Toll On Luckless Taku

The IndyCar Series street race in Toronto is always a bit of a war, and this year's was no exception, but even so the last thing you expect is to be shot down in a fight with your own team-mate. Unfortunately for Takuma Sato, that's exactly what happened to him, as he fell victim to a collision with fellow KV Racing Technology driver Mario Moraes that put the Japanese star out of the race with just 15 laps in the books.

The claustrophobic little track in Toronto's Exhibition Place is a tricky one to learn, as Taku discovered over Friday's practice sessions with his Lotus-backed Dallara-Honda. "Toronto is well-known as an extremely unique and tricky street course," he said. "It has many bumps and a lot of concrete patches, at almost every corner, which is very unpredictable. It's so difficult to put everything together. On a concrete patch you lose so much grip. You turn in on Tarmac, start cornering, then as soon as you hit a concrete patch you understeer. Then when the rear tyres touch the patch the whole car drifts, and when the fronts get back on the Tarmac it grips suddenly and massive oversteer! Together with the bumps that isn't going to help.

"It's very difficult to get the set-up right and to get the right racing lines. On some corners you even have to miss the apex!"

Nevertheless, Sato chipped away until, after the third hour of practice on Saturday morning, he was cautiously optimistic of making it through to the second round of qualifying for the top 12.

"We made progress steadily," he said. "It was difficult to get everything right but we started to pick things up. It always helps when you get onto a new set of tyres and I hoped that I could attack more on the softer red tyres."

Indeed that proved to be the case. Taku was within 0.1 seconds of the top spot in his group on the opening runs, and there appeared to be every chance that he would make it past the first hurdle. "On my second timed lap I was P1 of the group. I picked up good grip and could go even faster I was sure, but into the hairpin under braking the gearbox had a problem. It electrically cancelled everything and I had no drivetrain. The pit-lane was too far and unfortunately I had to stop."

Even more unfortunately, at this point two other cars came to a halt on the circuit and the session went under yellow flag conditions. So Taku was towed back to the pit and because he was the last person to arrive back it caused a delay to the session and, under IndyCar rules, Taku would lose his fastest two times, even though he was not the cause of the yellow! This relegated him to ninth in the group and 18th on the grid for Sunday's race.

A storming opening lap to the race lifted Taku to 15th position, but then he slid back over the next two laps, losing positions to EJ Viso, Tomas Scheckter (Sato's former British F3 rival from 2000), Mario Romancini, Paul Tracy and Moraes.

"We tried different things in the warm-up but they did not work out, so we tried a different set-up for the race and hoped it was working well. The start of the race was very exciting, and the opening lap was great fun. There was a lot of side-by-side stuff but unfortunately I then lost a few positions. On this course, once one person has passed you and you've lost momentum, it's so difficult and you continuously lose places. But I had great battles with PT and EJ - we gave each other enough room and I was sure I could challenge them later on."

Sadly he wouldn't get chance. Sato had been inching closer to Moraes when, on the 16th lap, the Brazilian gave him an opportunity to pass. "He made a mistake in Turn 1 and I pulled alongside him on the stretch to Turn 3. We were side by side going into the braking zone. The next thing, I cannot believe it! He didn't leave me any room on the outside and kept moving on me so I had nowhere to go and we made contact. I am so struggling to understand it."

So, another unfortunate result, but at least the next race follows straight after, with the IndyCar circus heading west to the prairie province of Alberta for a race on the Edmonton airport circuit, a fast and wide track.

"Toronto is all about survival, and I wanted to challenge and couldn't. It was such a shame, but nevertheless the next race in Edmonton is only a week away, so I will turn my head forward and hopefully we can have a good weekend."