A galiant effort but no reward for Super Aguri

By
June 26 2006

A frustrating day as Montagny's car blew up early on and Sato went out laps before the finish while defending hard against the faster Midland of Monteiro.

Today was a race of bitter disappointment and frustration as neither Sato nor Montagny could capitalise on their good start. This is because Sato had his front wing broken by another driver, while Montagny's engine gave way a few laps into the race after finding himself in a promising position.

Despite this problem Sato found himself infront of Monteiro who also had a similar fate on the first lap. The two were battling out during various parts of the grand prix. The saftey car appeared some ten laps before the end of the race which cancelled out the gap between him and Monteiro.  The faster Midland was hounding Sato who had to respond by pushing the car to the maximum. Unfortunantly the conditions were less then ideal to do so and in trying to defend against the Midland, Sato cliped the wall bringing an end to his race while so close to the finish.

A very unfortunate day for Sato who is classified 15th, "I am very disappointed not to have finished the race today, particularly as the start went really well for me and under braking into turn one I overtook both the Midland cars. Unfortunately, after the first safety car came out, David (Coulthard) squeezed past me, damaging my front wing at the second chicane and I had to come into the pits. I then pushed really hard for the entire race, very keen to finish in front of Monteiro, and after the last safety car went in I had to keep pushing the car to keep position. But by this time the circuit was so difficult to drive - the track was covered in marbles and dust - and as I had to continue to push so hard to stay in front of the Midland I went slightly offline and had no grip at all, so unfortunately could not finish the race.”

The end of a frustating weekend for Montagny, after having various problems earlier in the weekend his engine exploded a few laps into the race, "We did not have a great start to the weekend, but everybody has worked very hard and I was confident for the first time for the race today. It is ashame that a problem appeared today and I could not finish the race, but that is motor racing. We must not forget that we are a very young team and we have a lot of things to learn, both on the driving and technical sides, so every race is good experience for us."

A great job but no result for Aguri and his team, "It was a very tough race and showed that any small mistake can mean the end of your race at this circuit. I feel very sorry for Franck as he has worked hard all weekend. Taku had a great race and was pushing constantly to keep ahead of Monteiro, so it is a shame that he did not cross the finish line. Our car performance is very low and it is very difficult to drive so although it is not a great result for the team, I am happy that the drivers and the mechanics did a great job together over the weekend."