While Formula One made many visits to the fabled Long Beach street circuit, none of them were during Takuma Sato's spell in the top flight and, as a consequence, the Japanese ace spent day one of his first visit to the Californian track learning his way around.
Despite his inexperience, Taku posted times that kept him in the top ten for much of practice, before the #5 Lotus-KV Racing Technology entry was shuffled back to 13th by late improvements from some of his rivals. Sato's best time was a 1min 11.385secs effort to put him comfortably mid-pack in the sizeable IndyCar field.
"Long Beach is a special event but, for me, it is one of the new circuits, so I have to learn it," Taku noted, "We struggled with the balance of the car a bit today, so we have a lot of work to do tomorrow."
Qualifying for the 36th Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach takes place Saturday, with Sato hoping to progress to the Firestone Fast Six for the second time in as many races following his sterling effort at Barber Motorsport Park a week ago.
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