Best Yet For Taku In Edmonton

[Mark H]

Still, “it was a good race”, said Taku after his best result to date in his Lotus-backed KV Racing Technology Dallara-Honda.

 

After the tight confines of Toronto, the teams had moved west to the Alberta track of Edmonton, which is much wider.

 

“This is a truly unique circuit,” said Sato. “It's kind of a street course but the corner speeds are a lot higher and we were using road-course tyres, and the bumps are just unbelievable! The infield section is quite nice, and gives you a good rhythm, but with 14 corners in just over 60 seconds you are always turning, even on the straights, which are so wide you don't know where you're driving at first and you're always crossing from right to left to take the line for the next corner.”

 

Practice was split into three sessions, two on Friday and one on Saturday. Despite a couple of incidents, one of which sent him onto the grass and into some extremely large puddles, Sato showed well and was fifth fastest in second practice.

 

“I went into the carwash!” he joked. “Every circuit is new to me, so I have to run from the beginning to learn and need some extra laps meaning I don't usually have a new tyres at the end of the session when the circuit is nicely "rubbered in" and people generally set a quick lap with it. But the second practice was stopped by so many yellow flags that my run on new tyres came ‘accidentally' late, so I was able to do a quick time.”

 

Unfortunately, that momentum wasn't carried through to qualifying. Taku was drawn in what would have become known as the ‘Group of Death' if it were a World Cup tournament.

 

“There were the three Penske cars,” he said, “Dario Franchitti from Ganassi, Justin Wilson, Paul Tracy - a very competitive group compared to the other one, and also we were the first group to run, which means the track was very green.”

 

Sato was seventh in the group, narrowly missing out by less than a tenth of a second on the top six who progressed into the second round of qualifying and having to make do with 13th on the grid. His time would have comfortably qualified him from the second group, which ran with faster track conditions.

 

“I did everything I could,” he said, “but with the lower temperature and slippery conditions our car didn't react well. It was an unlucky moment.”

 

That put Taku in a long train early in the race. He ran 14th, part of a snake of cars being held up by Tomas Scheckter, but just after the ten-lap mark Scheckter pitted, Sato passed his fellow Japanese Hideki Mutoh and then decimated a nine-second gap to Marco Andretti so that he was battling with the American by the time of the first pitstops. After the stops he carried on fighting with the likes of Andretti, Moraes and Tracy, but was struggling.

 

“It was an exciting race, with lots of battling and overtaking,” he said. “I enjoyed it. On the second stint I was struggling with the prime tyre due to slightly optimistic tyre pressures. It worked well once I got the tyre temperatures up, but the balance had dramatically changed. It was getting better towards the middle of the stint, but every time there was a restart it was difficult again.”

 

Sato made an early final pit-stop, allowing him to set a scorching pace on the alternate red tyres on a clear track. That meant that, by the time the stops had shuffled out, he was running eighth, right on the tail of Andretti Autosport's Ryan Hunter-Reay. Unfortunately, he was also in the vicinity of Hunter-Reay's team-mates Danica Patrick and Tony Kanaan…

 

“I got good grip on the tyres and was happy with the balance,” Taku said. “I was quickest on the track at that time and set the fourth fastest lap overall, and was battling Hunter-Reay for position. But when we both lapped the Andretti cars, Danica let Ryan go and then blocked me, which was very unfair. I communicated with my team, ‘what's going on?', and they said they were working on it. I don't know what the officials were doing but I was held for 15 laps. It was getting silly.”

 

Then there was the drama of a final restart with three laps remaining

 

“PT ran wide at the chicane, then I was alongside and pushed away by him!” Taku said. “I nearly lost it but just hung on the position. On the back straight Scheckter let the other guys lap him, but when it was my turn he came back onto my line and I had to hold, and then Tony Kanaan came from behind and hit me. That was very disappointing.”

 

Taku spun down to tenth, although was promoted to ninth after the race as winner Helio Castroneves did not take a drive-through penalty. With road-course circuits at Mid-Ohio and Sears Point coming up, it was an encouraging weekend.

 

“It was good momentum that I really need to carry through to the next race,” he said. “We had a lot of positives today and learned a few things. I'm really looking forward to the road courses coming up.”

 

 

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