Britain: Takuma Sato pressing the wrong buttons

By Phil Huff
July 10 2005

Lucky Strike BAR Honda's Takuma Sato suffered another poor race at Silverstone today, effectively ending his race chances before even lining up on the grid.

As Sato turned the last corner before taking his position on the grid, he slowed down to perform a practice start, intending to build up heat in the rear tyres. However, in the process, the Japanese driver stalled the car, necessitating the use of the F1 Safety Car while the marshals struggled to move his stricken BAR from the race track.

"The simple fact is that as I was going through the start procedure on the way to the grid, I hit the wrong button on the steering wheel as I was warming up the tyres," explained Takuma.

"I would like to apologise to everyone in the team, everyone who got the car ready and put so much preparation into the British Grand Prix this weekend."

Takuma's car was returned to the pit lane where the crew took some time to refuel and restart the car. This process ended up leaving Sato two laps down.

"I couldn't deliver the result we wanted and could have had today," he went on. "The team did a great job to get me back in the race and I tried my best but was so far behind that I couldn't do anything."

Once back in the race, Sato did at least lap relatively competitively, proving the pace of the BAR Honda 007, but reminding fans how far up the field he could have been.

"It's been a tough year for us all and we can only continue to keep trying and aim for better things in the second half of the season," added Sato.

The 'tough year' faced by BAR has seen the team banned from two races, disqualified from one, failing to race at another, and suffering reliability issues earlier in the season that saw them fail to finish repeatedly.

Takuma is now at the bottom of the driver tables, scoring no points at all this season. The only other driver to have failed to score is Anthony Davidson who, coincidentally, deputised for Takuma at the Malaysian Grand Prix.