Europe: Takuma Sato speaks to the press

By Phil Huff (29/05/2004)
May 29 2004

Lucky Strike BAR Honda's Takuma Sato faced the qualifying press conference today for the second time in his career. Starting on the front row, the Japanese driver was obviously excited.

Taku, that was a great performance, just a little bit slower than you were in pre-qualifying but what a great lap that was too.

Sure. Luckily the track conditions stayed very similar to what they were in first qualifying and I’m so delighted to be here. After my third place in Barcelona, which was my best grid position, I really wanted to be on the front row of the grid and I’m totally happy today.

You were alongside Michael at the start at Monaco, we all saw that, and now here you are alongside him again.

Yeah, to be honest, this year both Jenson and I are quite up on the grid and the team is doing a fantastic job. Unfortunately at Monaco I had to stop quite early in the race, I couldn’t really enjoy the race with competitors, but today I think we achieved what we wanted and tomorrow I will be really looking forward to going side-by-side with a really good competitor.



Takuma-San, the first front row of the grid for a Japanese driver. That must make you very proud?

Absolutely delighted. I am so happy today and obviously the team has done a really fantastic job, we chose the tyre carefully and we chose really well, so I am very satisfied with my lap today.

Tell us about it. Were there any little mistakes, do you think you could have gone quicker?

Not really. People are always so demanding in this business and they want you to be quicker usually. But I think what we have done since Friday... I didn’t have a great start to the free practice but we gradually came up and up and finally, just pre- qualifying, we found a really nice balance and luckily the weather and the track conditions stayed very, very similar. Obviously, Michael’s lap was stunning but it really didn’t affect me, I just really wanted to get my business done and today is the day. So I am really happy.

So, are you going to make a Monaco start tomorrow or just slightly slower?

I mean, I don’t know. Funnily enough, this year I have never started from the off side, if you like, I have always been like third and fifth and whatever, so it will be very interesting, obviously, to start from second. Obviously the front row is one of my dreams so I can’t wait, I am really excited.

Can you give us a little comment on the new qualifying system that seems to be put forward from Silverstone?

There is nothing confirmed yet. Obviously I am just getting used to the current format, so, to me it doesn’t matter if it is going to be different or not. You have to be flat-out to be first anyway.