Taku`s Long Beach Report

On the positive side, Takuma Sato has at last had an IndyCar race that he finished without serious delay. On the negative side, Long Beach was by far the least competitive display this season for the KV Racing Technology team, and the Japanese ex-Formula 1 star could manage only a disappointing 18th position around the Californian streets.

After showing top-six form the previous weekend at Alabama's Barber Motorsports Park, Sato was buoyant on the trip west to Long Beach. "I was confident and more comfortable in the car," he said. "We were all upbeat and the team was very excited coming to Long Beach."

But there wasn't much excitement in Friday practice, as Taku's Lotus-backed Dallara-Honda and his team-mates struggled. "Long Beach is a historic place and the atmosphere is great but we as a team simply struggled with grip, because the car was skipping and sliding and I couldn't get a good feeling. So to learn the circuit in an unpredictable car is always tricky, particularly the very last section of the track - going into the hairpin there are quite a few lines and it was a bit confusing."

Things didn't look up on Saturday. "We changed almost everything but it still wasn't good. It was not only me but EJ Viso, my team-mate. Last year he qualified fourth here, and he struggled a lot too... We had to make another big, radical change for qualifying."

Did it work? "Honestly? Unfortunately No… It wasn't about balance. The balance was not far away and on a street circuit you never get a perfect balance – we all know that. It was just that the pure grip was so low and the car didn't have any bite."

Even worse, in the qualifying lottery all three KV drivers - Sato, Viso and Mario Moraes – were drawn together in the opening group. They ended up eighth, ninth and 10th in their group, giving them 15th, 17th and 19th (for Taku) on the grid. For the first time in his IndyCar career, Sato failed to make round two of qualifying.

There was a glimmer of hope in Sunday morning's warm-up: "We did some big changes almost every session and the problem for that was we couldn't have a chance to settle the set up and have it tuned. So we went through the details overnight and made a small change from qualifying and indeed it was a positive improvement. Still we needed a lot more but it was clearly better."

Not that there was much chance of gaining places, even at the start. "In the final hairpin there is only one line, so there is no chance to get all the grid side by side for a rolling start. By the time the back of the pack came round the hairpin it was about trying to catch up - the race had already started! I had no chance to overtake even at Turn 1, but I settled into a rhythm immediately. I was happy with my pace and I could go a lot faster, so I started to save tyres and fuel."

As he would be through most of the race, Sato was stuck behind another car. "When the guy in front pitted I nailed it, but the people who pitted behind me had already been running in good clean air. It didn't work out so well for us today because when I came out I had already lost a position."

Worse was to come, as Alex Lloyd emerged from his pit stop… "He came out of the pits with cold tyres and I overtook him, but he quite unnecessarily tried to protect his position and couldn't stop on his cold tyres and hit me. I spun and lost a chunk of time, and that put me in a difficult position because now I was close to being lapped."

Even worse, just after Taku was lapped by the leader, there was a collision right in front of him between Graham Rahal and Mario Romancini that led to the only full-course yellow of the race. If it had happened a few laps earlier, Sato could have caught up the pack and gone racing again. Now, a lap down and running just behind the leader on the road, his race was effectively over.

"After the restart I had good pace, and was hanging on (just 0.1 seconds slower than front-running Penske pair Ryan Briscoe and Helio Castroneves), but in a blue-flag situation race control said I had to give way. Once you do that there are another 10 cars behind, so you have to let them lap you too! I finished the race but it was a really disappointing weekend."

Now, from the tight street circuits, a new adventure begins, as Sato heads to Kansas Speedway for his first oval race on May 1. "It is a quick change to my mind and I have to consider everything about oval racing. I'm flying to Kansas and first I have to do my rookie orientation test. It's going to be quite exciting I hope!"