Takuma Sato
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Takuma Sato (born January 28, 1977 in Tokyo) is a formula one race car driver for the Super Aguri F1 formula one team. What separates the diminutive driver from the Orient from other Japanese drivers is his minimal background in motorsports when he was still starting out, with his racing career taking off with two-wheeled vehicles before moving on to karting and eventually to single seaters.
Dubbed as The Kamikaze Kid because of his driving style---characterized by flamboyant overtaking maneuvers that both draw praises and criticisms---Sato is considered as one of the faster drivers that possess raw talent. His mild-mannered demeanor off track is in contrast with his on-track instinct to attack for position as well as his relentless attitude to not give his opposition an opening without a fight.
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Personal Life
Takuma was born in Japan but is surprisingly a fluent English speaker after learning the language during his days training in England. The 5-foot-3, 130-pound Taku, who began his racing journey with bicycles, still enjoy cycling during free time, and also loves to eat. Sato and wife Chiharu gave birth to a son on the 23rd of December 2005 at Princess Grace Central in Monaco.
Career
Early Career
Sato started out racing bicycles in Japan when he was still a teenager, reaping several national junior championships in his two-wheeled career. At a late age of 19, he made his entry to karting after buying a kart then enlisting himself later on in Honda's Suzuka Racing School scholarship where he won the prize---a fully paid drive in the 1998 All-Japan Formula Three Championship. After driving for the Mugen-Dome project at the All-Japan F3 Championship for less than a season, Sato decided to break his contract and leave for Europe to pursue his dream of someday racing in the ranks of Formula One.
His European journey brought him in UK where he took part in several Formula Vauxhall Junior races in mid 1998 under the Diamond Racing team. He made his debut at Snetterton and his performance allowed him to be elevated to Formula Opel by the end of the year under the same team. A year later, Sato completed his first full year of car racing where he competed in selected rounds of the EFDA Formula Opel Euroseries, winning the opening race of the season at Donington before placing sixth in the championship. He eventually made a move to British F3 Championship in Class B mid-season, still with Diamond Racing. He ended the year winning the Macau Grand Prix support race for AF2000 cars with Meritus Racing.
Having proven his ability in the ranks of Formula Three, Sato joined Carlin Motorsport for 2000 and competed in the British F3 Championship 'A' Class where he won five races and placed 3rd in the championship. His performance gained interests from several F1 teams, and in December, Sato was able to test with a couple of teams---Jordan and British American Racing (BAR). He eventually signed with BAR as a test driver for the 2001 season while honing his skills in F3 level, dominating the British F3 Championship after claiming a total of 16 victories in the 2000 and 2001 seasons while winning the Marlboro Masters of F3 at Zandvoort and the International race supporting the British Grand Prix. He concluded his F3 career with a win at the Macau Grand Prix in November 2001 with wins on both the qualifying event and the main race which practically sealed his entry to Formula One.
Jordan (2002)
Sato's impressive tests with BAR at Silverstone and Mugello eventually earned him a seat with the Honda-powered Jordan Grand Prix for 2002, where he was teammates with Italian Giancarlo Fisichella. Sato's debut season was quite a difficult one as he tried to outdo not only his more seasoned teammate, but the rest of the contenders as well. In his quest to perform better than Fisi, Sato instead drove himself into accidents, including one on the A1-Ring which left him hospitalized in Austria after a collision with Sauber's Nick Heidfeld. The disappointing debut, which also raised Sato's reputation as accident-prone, was marked by seven retirements and nine other scoreless campaigns. Nonetheless, Sato peaked in time for the season-ending home race at Suzuka where he outqualified Fisichella and notched his first set of Championship points in his career, eventually landing him in the 17th spot with 2 points.
BAR (2003-05)
After Jordan switched its engines to Ford in 2003, Sato returned to the BAR team and became its test and reserve driver as he aided on the development of the Honda 005 and 006 race cars. On the final race of the year, Sato was given the opportunity to race in place of Jacques Villeneuve and once again put up a strong showing in front of his home crowd, placing sixth in the race with 3 points while ending the season 18th on the driver's championship.
The following season, Sato finally earned a seat at a much improved team, opposite teammate Jenson Button with a better developed BAR Honda 006 at their disposal. The team had probably one of its more competitive seasons to date, with Sato scoring in half of the races, starting with his fifth place finishes in Bahrain and Spain. But the season was not without some rather "questionable calls" from the Tokyo native, after causing Fisichella's roll-over in Monaco and sacrificing what could've been his first podium in the European GP after an attempt on Rubens Barrichello late in the race. That season teammate Button called Sato a "ragged" driver, obviously referring to his previous accidents that season.
Amidst the mini-controversies, Sato shone in 2004 after going toe to toe with Schumacher in Monaco and finishing just second to him in the qualifying for the European GP. He also made history by becoming only the second Japanese to claim a podium finish since Aguri Suzuki claimed one at the 1990 Japanese Grand Prix, finishing third in the 2004 United States Grand Prix, his first career podium. Mechanical problems however cost Sato some scores and helped teammate Button create some separation between the two BAR drivers. Still, Sato ended the year with a personal best 8th place finish in the season with 34 points while Button recorded a third-best 85 points to help BAR finish runner up to Ferrari in the constructor's championship.
Sato maintained his seat at BAR the following year, and understandably, expectations were high for the team after a remarkable 2004 performance. Unfortunately, the team did not live up to the hype as the new machine was not as sharp as its predecessor's design. The season began with Sato placing 14th in the Australian GP, though the team decided to withdraw its cars late in the race in order to "eliminate them from having to keep their engines at Malaysia." [1] Sato for his part was unable to participate in the Malaysian race because of a flu, returning on the next race ready to pace his teammate only to be retired with faulty brakes. At Imola, Sato and Button finished strongly at 5th and 3rd places, respectively, unfortunately investigations showed that the team was using an illegal fueltank leading to a disqualification for both drivers. A two-race ban, which was implemented in the Spain and Monaco races, followed and the team couldn't quite recover after that. To add insult to injury, Sato also suffered a DQ in his home race in Suzuka after running Toyota's Jamo Trulli off the track. He only managed to score once during the season, a point in the Hungarian Grand Prix where he placed 8th, ending the year as number 23 in the driver's championship.
Super Aguri F1 (2006-07)
After Honda successfully took the reigns from the BAR team at the end of 2005, Sato suddenly found himself demoted to third-driver duties behind Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello. He then decided to move over to the new Honda-powered Super Aguri team which was handled by former F1 driver, Japan's Aguri Suzuki, and was using four-year-old Arrows chassis. Despite virtually starting from scratch, with no staff, no drivers, and no cars, the team managed to deploy a decent team headed by Sato and rookie teammate Yuji Ide, and later on Ide's replacements Franck Montagny and Sakon Yamamoto. The team went scoreless through the season, and although Sato may have outpaced his teammates all season long and his driving has improved dramatically from his erratic performances in previous competitions, Sato still received criticisms for certain incidents including his tangle with Tiago Monteiro at the USGP.
Super Aguri renewed Sato's services for 2007, this time teaming him with former Carlin Motorsport teammate Anthony Davidson. Armed with the newly modified SA07, Sato recorded the team's best ever qualifying result after placing 10th in the Australian GP qualifying round and finishing 12th in the actual race. He notched Super Aguri's first ever championship points at the 2007 Spanish Grand Prix after finishing 8th on the race, then went on to score again in Canada with his 6th place finish. The Canadian race was the highlight of Sato's 2007 season after passing Ferrari's Kimi Räikkönen (putting him in 5th place only to drop to 11th after a pit stop error), Toyota's Ralf Schumacher (moving himself five places in the last 15 laps), and McLaren-Mercedes' Fernando Alonso (lap 67) eventually earning himself a "Driver of the Day" award from the British ITV website. He ended the season with 4 driver's championship points, which also turned out as the team's only score as outpaced teammate Anthony Davidson went scoreless all season long.
Results and Records
Career Summary
Complete Formula One Results
| Year | Entrant | Chassis | Engine | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | WDC | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2002 | DHL Jordan Honda | Jordan EJ12 | Honda RA002E 3.0 V10 | AUS Ret | MAL 9 | BRA 9 | SMR Ret | ESP Ret | AUT Ret | MON Ret | CAN 10 | EUR 16 | GBR Ret | FRA Ret | GER 8 | HUN 10 | BEL 11 | ITA 12 | USA 11 | JPN 5 | 15th | 2 | ||
| 2003 | Lucky Strike BAR Honda | BAR 005 | Honda RA003E 3.0 V10 | AUS | MAL | BRA | SMR | ESP | AUT | MON | CAN | EUR | FRA | GBR | GER | HUN | ITA | USA | JPN 6 | 18th | 3 | |||
| 2004 | Lucky Strike BAR Honda | BAR 006 | Honda RA004E 3.0 V10 | AUS 9 | MAL 15 | BHR 5 | SMR 16 | ESP 5 | MON Ret | EUR Ret | CAN Ret | USA 3 | FRA Ret | GBR 11 | GER 8 | HUN 6 | BEL Ret | ITA 4 | CHN 6 | JPN 4 | BRA 6 | 8th | 34 | |
| 2005 | Lucky Strike BAR Honda | BAR 007 | Honda RA005E 3.0 V10 | AUS 14 | MAL WD | BHR Ret | SMR DSQ | ESP EX | MON EX | EUR 12 | CAN Ret | USA DNS | FRA 11 | GBR 16 | GER 12 | HUN 8 | TUR 9 | ITA 16 | BEL Ret | BRA 10 | JPN DSQ | CHN Ret | 23rd | 1 |
| 2006 | Super Aguri F1 Team | Super Aguri SA05 | Honda RA806E 2.4 V8 | BHR 18 | MAL 14 | AUS 12 | SMR Ret | EUR Ret | ESP 17 | MON Ret | GBR 17 | CAN 15 | USA Ret | FRA Ret | 23rd | 0 | ||||||||
| Super Aguri SA06 | GER Ret | HUN 13 | TUR NC | ITA 16 | CHN DSQ | JPN 15 | BRA 10 | |||||||||||||||||
| 2007 | Super Aguri F1 | Super Aguri SA07 | Honda RA807E 2.4 V8 | AUS 12 | MAL 13 | BHR Ret | ESP 8 | MON 17 | CAN 6 | USA Ret | FRA 16 | GBR 14 | EUR Ret | HUN 15 | TUR 18 | ITA 16 | BEL 15 | JPN 15 | CHN 14 | BRA 12 | 17th | 4 | ||
| 2008 | Super Aguri F1 | Super Aguri SA08 | Honda RA808E 2.4 V8 | AUS | MAL | BHR | ESP | TUR | MON | CAN | FRA | GBR | GER | HUN | EUR | BEL | ITA | SIN | JPN | CHN | BRA |
References
- Congratulations! Takuma Sato becomes a father
- Takuma Sato Crash.net Profile
- Takuma Sato Formula One Database Profile
- Takuma Sato Wikipedia
- Takuma Sato: Japan's Greatest Formula 1 Driver
External Links
Categories: Formula One drivers | Super Aguri drivers | Japanese drivers | Japanese Formula One drivers
