Tough Group Denies Sato Second Round Place

[Mark H]

Takuma Sato just missed out on a spot in the second round of qualifying for the Honda Indy Edmonton after finding himself in the harder of the two first round qualifying groups.

 

The Japanese rookie will start 13th on the quirky City Centre Airport circuit after clocking 114.713mph in the #5 Lotus-KV Racing Technology Dallara-Honda, ending the short session just a tenth of a second off the fastest six drivers in a group that included points leader Will Power, multiple Indy 500 winner Helio Castroneves, the third Penske driver Ryan Briscoe, reigning champion Dario Franchitti and last weekend's polesitter Justin Wilson.

 

"The first group was the toughest group today," Sato confirmed, "I didn't get a good feeling during the first run with the primary tyres. However, when we went to the alternate tyre, the car was getting better and it looked like it was all coming together.

 

"Unfortunately, the times were so close that we missed the top twelve by less than a tenth of a second. I tried everything we had, but we just couldn't find the grip so I'm very disappointed we didn't make it through to Q2 today."

 

This post has been promoted to an article