Photo Credit: Kreistina Blinova
It’s been an up-and-down season for Takuma Sato, to say the least. The Japanese driver heads to the streets of Toronto looking to swing the momentum his way.
So far in 2016, Sato has three top-10 finishes, all of which have come on street courses. His best finish of fifth at Long Beach is also the site of his only Verizon IndyCar Series win in 2013. The Formula 1 turned IndyCar driver told OnPitRoad.com in May he hopes he can translate his past street course success into a win at the Honda Indy.
“I personally enjoy street course racing because there’s so many things happening,” Sato explained. “Long Beach was a special day for me, but why not in Toronto? I think they are a couple similarities. Setup wise, it’s quite different. We need to work with the engineers closely to build the car faster here. We know how to get around Long Beach well, so why not here?”
In Sato’s eight starts at the Toronto circuit, he’s had a mixed bag of results. He has three top-10s, including a fifth in 2014, and a 10th-place run last year, but he also has a few DNFs due to wrecks. The various results display the difficulty level of Toronto.
“Toronto is one of the most challenging street courses,” Sato said. “It’s perhaps one of the most unpredictable races. It’s a track that I personally like, but I think the track dislikes me. We didn’t have strong results up until last year. Last year was a relatively strong result, but I always enjoy it.”
Sato noted one of the most difficult things about Toronto is the changes in track surface. The variety of patches of asphalt and concrete throughout the track makes it unique, and keeps drivers on their toes all day.
“It’s quite challenging – it’s super busy,” he said. “On track, it’s very bumpy. Multiple layers of (track) surface – meaning you have an asphalt patch, a concrete patch and then another asphalt patch. As a driver, it’s very unpredictable.”
The only thing on Sato’s mind going into the weekend at Toronto is coming away with a strong run.
“This is a quite exciting track, so hopefully this year we come here strong, and I can produce a better result.”
