| 1997 |
Karting Champion - Honda Suzuka Racing School Scholarship, winning a fully paid drive in the 1998 All-Japan Formula 3 Championship although did not pursue this route in favour of moving to England and racing in a British Formula.
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| 1998 |
European Car racing debut at Snetterton in the Formula Vauxhall Junior Championship, graduating to Formula Opel at the end of the year, both with Diamond Racing.
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| 1999 |
EFDA Formula Opel Euroseries with Diamond Racing - competed in selected rounds, winning the opening race of the season at Donington. Finished 6th place in the Championship. Moved to British F3 Championship in Class B mid-season with Diamond Racing. Ended the season by winning the AF2000 race at the Macau F3 Grand Prix meeting.
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| 2000 |
British F3 - Carlin Motorsport. Victory at 4 championship races and won the Spa round of the French F3 championship. Finished 3rd in the championship.
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| 2001 |
British F3 Champion - Carlin Motorsport. 12 race wins, as well as victories in the Marlboro Masters of F3 at Zandvoort, the International F3 race supporting the British Grand Prix and the prestigious Macau F3 GP. F1 Test Driver for British American Racing.
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| 2002 |
F1 debut with Jordan Grand Prix. During the course of a dramatic season Taku scored his first Formula One World Championship points appropriately enough at Suzuka where he finished fifth after qualifying in seventh place. Against his highly rated team-mate Giancarlo Fisichella, Taku makes a strong showing and outqualified the Italian five times. Found himself on the front pages of the world痴 press after an horrific crash in Austria when Nick Heidfeld speared into the side of his car.
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| 2003 |
Opts to join BAR on a three-year deal, staying with the works Honda effort. First year of deal is as third driver in the team with Jacques Villeneuve and Jenson Button first choice for racing.
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| 2004 |
Full time return to F1 as team-mate to Jenson Button. Showed undoubted pace throughout the season and scored 34 world championship points, securing eighth place in the drivers・championship and helped BAR finish as runners-up to Ferrari in the constructors・title race - in what proved to be the best ever season for both him and the team.
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During the course of the year, Taku scored points at half of the 18 races, including a maiden podium in the United States GP at Indianapolis, and also secured his first front row start at the Nurburgring for the European Grand Prix.
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| 2005 |
Second full season with BAR. Despite the fact the team struggled somewhat in comparison to the previous year - and effectively missed five events following a technical dispute with the FIA , illness and withdrawl from the USA Grand Prix - Taku persevered, qualifying in the top ten on seven occasions and scoring a point at the Hungarian Grand Prix.
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| 2006 |
Takuma joined the new Super Aguri squad and while it wasn't easy for him or the Leafield-based team, which was formed in record time, it ultimately proved rewarding. Indeed Taku impressed many down the pit lane with his attitude and perseverance and he managed to complete ten grand prix distances. As the season went on the team made good progress and Taku ended the year on a high by taking tenth at the season ending Brazilian GP.
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| 2007 |
Taku continued with Super Aguri and was reunited with former Formula 3 and BAR-Honda team-mate Anthony Davidson. Notable highlights included making it into Q3 at the season-opening Australian GP and lining up 10th on the grid; scoring the team's first ever point in May when he brought his SA07 home in eighth place at Barcelona; and doing even better a month later to take a stunning sixth in the Canadian GP - his breathtaking move on Fernando Alonso earned him the ‘Overtake of the Year’ award from F1 Racing magazine. Taku's four points earned him 17th in the championship.
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| 2008 |
The season started with Super Aguri in dire financial problems owing to a default on payments from sponsors during the 2007 season. With virtually no testing during the winter, and with the SA08 car far from optimised because of that, it was always going to be a struggle for Taku. Nevertheless he battled well, and would have scored points in the opening race in Australia had it not been for a retirement. After four races, during which Taku's best result was 13th in Spain, the team was forced to withdraw from F1, leaving the Japanese and team-mate Davidson without a drive.
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| 2010 |
After sitting out the 2009 season due to a lack of opportunities in Formula 1, Taku moved to the IZOD IndyCar Series in the USA, driving with the KV Racing Technology team. He took a best qualifying position of third at Mid-Ohio and a best race result of ninth at Edmonton, finishing 21st in the points.
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| 2011 |
He stayed with the Lotus-supported, Honda-powered KVRT team and took his first two pole positions in IndyCar - on the Iowa Speedway oval and the Edmonton airport track. He led four races, with a best race result of fourth at Mid-Ohio, and moved up to finish 13th in the standings.
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| 2012 |
A switch to the Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing team moved Sato closer to the winner’s circle, taking his first IndyCar podium in Sao Paulo and finishing second at Edmonton. This meant he became the first Asian driver ever to take a podium finish in both F1 and IndyCar. Taku also came close to winning the Indianapolis 500, crashing on the final lap when Dario Franchitti defended the lead into Turn 1. Sato led five races and took 14th in the points. He also contested some races in Formula Nippon and the World Endurance Championship.
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| 2013 |
Another switch to AJ Foyt Racing finally brought Taku his first IndyCar win, on the streets of Long Beach this made history as it was the highest-ever level at which an Asian driver has won in motor racing. He came within one corner of making it two wins in a row, only losing the lead at the final turn in Sao Paulo, and led the championship before a disappointing run of mid-season problems. Nevertheless, he bounced back from this in the late-season race at Houston to take his third IndyCar pole position, and this was the fourth race he led of the season. He finished 17th in the points. Once again he also raced in some Super Formula (formerly Formula Nippon) races with Team Mugen.
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| 2014 |
As in 2013, he took part in the IndyCar Series with AJ Foyt Racing. With one win in 2013, the target for 2014 was at least two victories. He got off to an excellent start with pole position for the season opening race at St Petersburg. But, unfortunately, he fell victim to unlucky incidents and ended up finishing the race in seventh. |
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Another pole position came for race two in Detroit, but he was involved in two crashes in the race and finished 18th. |
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With the first race in Toronto postponed due to poor weather, grid positions for race two were set on championship positions, meaning Taku was way down in 22nd place. Rain continued to pour at the beginning of the race before conditions improved. Sato gradually climbed the order and finished fifth. |
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Although he started from 20th on the grid at the scenic, beautiful road course of Sonoma in California, great work from the pit crew enabled Taku to finish in fourth place his best result of the 2014 season. |
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He finished the final race of the season at Fontana in sixth place, giving him 18th in the overall season ranking. Counting points from just the final five races of the season, Taku would have placed fifth… |
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Sato headed for Beijing in China immediately after the last IndyCar Series round in order to take part in the first-ever Formula E race, driving for AMLIN AGURI, led by Aguri Suzuki. The team includes former racing friends from when Taku raced for Super Aguri in F1, so it was more or less a homecoming. The race took place on a track in the Olympic field, surrounding the Beijing National Gymnasium.
Sato was ambitious for a good result, but preparation time had been lacking for the team. He qualified 14th of the 20 cars, and was up to 10th in the race before problems dropped him down the order. Still, he managed fastest lap in the late stages of the race, an encouraging achievement. |
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AJ Foyt Racing announced that they were going to extend Taku’s contract in 2015. It was also confirmed that the team would expand to two cars, with young British driver Jack Hawksworth joining Sato. This enabled the team to cut back the engineering deficit to the top teams, no doubt leading to better performances. |
| 2015 |
2015 A third season with AJ Foyt Racing brought Sato an improved championship position of 14th for the Texan legend’s team, but overall it was a mixed year. The new aerodynamic kits were introduced by Honda and Chevrolet, and it was Chevrolet that had the advantage. The Honda-powered Foyt team had a difficult time on road courses, although there were some good street-track showings, with Taku’s second place in Detroit inches from the win his best result of the season. The combination was also very strong on superspeedways, with some great late-race showings in the trio of 500-mile races. Sato led at both Fontana and Pocono, and finished sixth in the latter race. |
| 2016 |
Sato remained with AJ Foyt Racing for a fourth season, but it was a disappointing year for the #14 Dallara-Honda and the Japanese driver finished 17th in the points. His best results were a pair of fifth places on the streets of Long Beach and Toronto. Immediately after Toronto came the Mid-Ohio road course, where Taku was running an excellent fourth in the closing laps, only for a bungled overtaking attempt by Sebastien Bourdais to bump him down the order to an eventual ninth position. Another strong result had gone begging at Road America, where Sato looked on course for at least a top-five finish before he was twice penalised for speeding in the pits, due to a faulty pitlane speed limiter. There was strong pace on the superspeedways, but disastrous luck. In the Indy 500 Sato was looking good for a great race with 40 laps remaining, only for a sudden loss of downforce to pitch him into the wall. He qualified third at Pocono and was running in this position at the start when an aero-instability problem caused another crash. And he was fourth on the grid at Texas Motor Speedway, before appalling handling problems ended his race as the team elected to save the car for the following weekend’s round at Watkins Glen. |
| 2017 |
With Andretti Autosport, Sato was quick out of the blocks to take fifth at St Petersburg in the opening race, but non-finishes at Long Beach and Phoenix sandwiched a ninth place at Barber Motorsports Park. Then a tough race to 12th on the Indianapolis road course led into Indy 500 practice and qualifying. Taku was quick throughout, qualifying fourth for the big race before racing back through the field after a pit stop drama to sensationally win the 500! There were to be no further victories, although he did claim two pole positions: at Detroit Belle Isle and Pocono. The best post-Indy 500 finishes were fourth in Detroit and fifth at Mid-Ohio, although the other Detroit race should have yielded a result better than his eventual eighth place, but an ill-timed yellow caught him on the wrong strategy. Strong pace on the end-of-season road courses was scuppered by bad luck – including at Watkins Glen, where he was just about to race into the lead on the opening lap when he suffered an unexpected power loss that lost him many laps. Sato finished the season eighth in the points – his best IndyCar campaign yet – while off-track he was paraded through many media activities after his 500 victory, culminating in receiving the highly prestigious Prime Minister’s Award from Japanese premier Shinzo Abe. |
| 2018 |
As the 2017 Indy 500 winner, Sato’s year up to the Month of May was a mixture of preparing for the season upon his return to the Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing team, and continuing his whirlwind tour as the most feted man in American motorsport. Oh, and he managed to spend some time driving his #30 Dallara-Honda too! By the time the 500 came around, the season hadn’t gone too well, with an eighth at Barber Motorsports Park and a 10th at the Indy GP race his only top-10 finishes. And his time as reigning Indy 500 winner came to an end in ignominious fashion when he was forced into a crash while avoiding the slowing car of James Davison. With the spotlight now off him, Taku went on a strong sequence of results: fifth in Detroit; seventh at Texas Motor Speedway; fourth at Road America; third at Iowa Speedway. That was followed by another run of races that featured ill fortune, until the dramatic Portland race on IndyCar’s return to Oregon after a long absence. Sato started this race 20th, but an incredible race of seesawing fortunes culminated in the #30 machine taking the chequered flag first, after Taku held off a late challenge from Ryan Hunter-Reay. That put him on the brink of a second consecutive season finishing in the top 10 in the points standings, only for an early engine failure in the Sonoma finale to relegate him to 12th. |
| 2019 |
He couldn’t quite match his best IndyCar points finish to date, but this was arguably Takuma Sato’s best season yet. He finished ninth in the points (compared to eighth in 2017) but for the first time won two races in a campaign. Sato also took two pole positions, meaning his career total in IndyCar now read five wins; nine poles. The first win came in April at Barber Motorsports Park, a race Taku absolutely dominated from pole. The second was earned in August on the Gateway oval, where a typically dramatic IndyCar oval race went the way of the #30, which showed great speed and benefited from the excellent strategy of Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing. There were two further podiums for third positions, the first of them coming in a thrilling finish to the Indianapolis 500, in which Sato flashed across the line right behind winner Simon Pagenaud and runner-up Alexander Rossi after recovering from being a lap down due to a cracked wheel. The second was at Detroit Belle Isle. Taku’s other pole came at Texas Motor Speedway, where he held a comfortable lead until an incident in the pits. Apart from the Gateway race, Sato’s second half of the season was mired in bad luck. Still, he held sixth in the points going into the finale – IndyCar’s return to the classic Laguna Seca venue – but his race was ruined when he was hit by Santino Ferrucci, and he could do nothing to prevent himself from sliding down the points table. |
| 2020 |
A second Indianapolis 500 victory and a best finish to date in the IndyCar Series points of seventh meant this was a memorable year for Takuma Sato. It was a memorable season for everyone, because the coronavirus pandemic massively impacted the schedules of every major race series in the world. In IndyCar’s case it resulted in the season starting in June, the Indy 500 taking place in August, and only one race on a street circuit, which arguably cost Sato and the Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing team a higher championship position, as they are traditionally strong at this type of track. Oval form was superb. The highlight was obviously the 500, where Taku qualified on the front row and emerged on top after a thrilling late battle with Scott Dixon. But he also should have won at the following round in St Louis, only for a delay at his final pit stop to drop him to third, from where he fought to second behind Dixon. He took pole – his 10th in IndyCar – for the other St Louis race, and led for 60 laps, only for lapped traffic to ruin his strategy. Another oval win went begging at Iowa Speedway, where Sato led for 50 laps before a caution destroyed the chances of what seemed a likely victory. The form on road courses was frustrating, with a best of eighth at Road America, the condensed nature of the weekend timetables in the midst of the pandemic frustrating the RLLR team’s efforts as it left little practice running.
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| 2021 |
The after-effects of the coronavirus pandemic meant a readjustment of the IndyCar schedule, but it eventually became a much more normal season than 2020. Unfortunately for Takuma Sato, the momentum from that memorable season could not be continued, and he finished 11th in the standings in his final campaign with Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, with a best result of fourth. There were races where potential wins went begging. It’s not out of the question that he could have taken a third Indy 500 triumph, only for a far-too-ambitious strategy on saving fuel to ruin his chances when he was running in the leading pack. Eventually he had to pit from the lead and finished 14th. Earlier in the season, at Texas Motor Speedway, a decision not to make a late stop under yellow had cost him and, after pitting under green, he was 14th. At St Louis, he was looking good for victory when it became apparent that not enough fuel had been going into the #30 Dallara-Honda at pit stops. Street and road courses were a struggle, with RLLR finding it difficult to get a good set-up for qualifying, but Taku frequently raced through and won the TAG Heuer Hard Charger Award for the driver who made up the most positions in races. The highlights here were his season-best fourth at Detroit Belle Isle, sixth at St Petersburg and eighth at Road America.
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| 2022 |
The 2022 IndyCar campaign for Takuma Sato ended with 19th in the points in his first season with Dale Coyne Racing with RWR, and a best result of fifth on the St Louis oval. Again it was a year of what might have been – once again there was some sparkling form on the ovals but a mixture of team miscues and bad luck with yellow flags militated against any stronger finishes. Taku led four races – three of them on merit, and one (Road America) because he ran longer to the first stop than anyone else. At Texas Motor Speedway, he dropped from contention when he lost time because his team-mate had stalled in the pits, and was then taken out; at Iowa Speedway, he was caught on the wrong strategy when a yellow flew; and at St Louis, he lost a very good chance of a win because the team called him into the pits at the wrong time. Getting a good balance for qualifying on the road and street circuits proved tricky for the DCR squad, but there was a highlight when Sato qualified on the front row in Detroit before suffering tyre degradation in the race. There were just two top-10 finishes away from the ovals, with a best of seventh at the Indy GP.
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| 2023 |
Takuma Sato signed for Chip Ganassi Racing to race oval competitions.
His first oval race was at the Texas Motor Speedway in April. He had not driven the car for a while, but he and his team fought very well and qualified sixth. Unfortunately he was forced to retire from the race after making contact with the wall. However, it was the race weekend to reconfirm the top team’s capabilities. His second race was the Indianapolis 500 in May and he set the fastest time on the opening day of practice and qualified 8th. He led for 2 laps in the race, but his car was struggling with the pace in the middle stage. In the end, he took the checkered flag in 7th place. The third race was the Iowa Double Header in July. At the first race, he started from P11 and finish in 9th. At the second race on the following day, he was forced to retire after contacting the wall in the middle of the race and finished 25th. In August, he completed his last race of the season at the at Gateway. He posted the third-fastest lap in the opening practice session but qualified 17th. It was unfortunate that he was forced to retire from the race and finished 26th after contacting the wall because of getting up in the marbles. Sato’s 2023 season ended with 70 points and finished 29th in the series ranking.
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