The first round of the Verizon IndyCar Series 2015 was a mixed bag for Takuma Sato. On the plus side, he was the fastest Honda runner in St Petersburg and battled eventual race winner Juan Pablo Montoya for some of the distance. On the minus side, a damaged front wing meant a replacement that dropped him right to the back of the field. And on the middle side (if such a thing exists!), he finished 13th to at least gain some valuable points to kick off his campaign.

With the 2014 season having finished as early as August, there was a lot of time for preparation, which encompassed the AJ Foyt Racing team expanding to a second full-time Dallara-Honda for young British driver Jack Hawksworth. “It was a really long wait for the season,” said Sato. “The reason for the off-season being so long is we had a new aerodynamic package to use, and the disappointment of the cancellation of the first race in Brasilia made it even longer. In Brazil we were going to use the 2014 aero package, so when that was cancelled the team switched its attention at the beginning of March to the 2015 package. This was a very unique situation – we didn’t test for so long and I hadn’t been in an IndyCar since August, and then in the middle of March we started to shake down the new aero package at NOLA Motorsports Park.

“The cars are quite different now – cosmetically they look different and when you drive you can feel the downforce available. IndyCar allowed us a new package, but the downforce Chevrolet and Honda produced was so much bigger than what they thought. Because of the strength of the current parts they had to reduce downforce we gained from the wings, and we still don’t have power-steering. About a third of downforce is generated by the diffuser and they had to take off its inside wall, which then loses you a significant amount of downforce.

“Still, it was exciting – the cars are now super-fast. Most teams visited NOLA in December and February so had a basic set-up for ride height and gears, so we had to catch up, but still it was a successful test. Then we went to Alabama, to Barber Motorsports Park, for two days, and then down to Sebring, so it was a lot of testing in the three weeks. Suddenly I was busy, but I think the team did great preparation over the course of the winter. Running two cars meant the team expanded more than double, including more engineers just to deal with the new aero.”

St Petersburg, of course, was a venue where Taku claimed pole in 2014. “It’s been kind to me for the last few seasons,” he said, “and we were confident we had a good basic package. We were comfortable in the first practice session and gathered good data, but second practice was wet. Because Saturday and Sunday had zero per cent chance of rain, and we were all short of spare parts, nobody was running.” Sato then went fourth fastest in the third session: “On Saturday morning we knew what needed to be done. I was a little bit nervous; hopefully the set-up was working. We were really strong – the top Honda runner, and it was good preparation for qualifying.”

Here, practice form carried through. Taku was quickest in his opening session, putting him comfortably through to the second segment. Here he was fourth, before placing fifth – again the fastest Honda runner, and behind only the four Team Penske cars – in the Firestone Fast Six shootout. “Qualifying was exciting, and I was quite looking forward to it,” he said. “Not necessarily super-optimistic, but still excited. It was the first time we used the soft red tyres with this package. In Q1 I had a really good feeling, and in the second we tuned it more and we were a fraction faster. By the Firestone Fast Six I was really excited, but Penske’s dominance was quite strong and I had to settle for fifth. Still, I really enjoyed the lap and it was a very very good performance by the team. Being the top Honda gave us great satisfaction, and the team did tremendous work.”

At the start of the race, Sato leapfrogged Montoya to fourth only for the race to go under caution immediately for debris from Hawksworth’s broken front wing. “Turn 1 is always chaos!” said Taku. “I think Juan challenged Helio Castroneves, they got really close and I was able to challenge Juan and overtake him. Jack lost his front wing, and I got the message on the radio from the team. They had to give him our only spare, and because of this maybe I was cautious at the restart and I lost a position.”

Montoya was back in front, but Sato stayed on his tail until the first round of pit-stops. Here he was jumped by Sebastien Bourdais, while the out-of-synch Hawksworth also stayed in front, dropping Taku to seventh. A yellow shortly after for more debris led to another restart, and a very tight bunch of five cars – Simon Pagenaud, Montoya, Hawksworth, Bourdais and Sato – heading into Turn 1 in a big clump. “I took the opportunity to dive inside Bourdais,” said Taku, “but Pagenaud in front of me was slowing down really dramatically. I was saying ‘Go go go!’ but now I was side by side with Bourdais who was coming back. I was boxed in and had a gentle touch with him, just a kiss. Last year that would have meant nothing, just a scuffed tyre mark, but the aggressive new aero is equally very fragile and I damaged an endplate. Sadly I had to come into the pits.”

Remember how Hawksworth had needed the only remaining front wing in the Foyt team’s possession? Luckily, the folks at Dale Coyne Racing had a spare! “We could have put on an old 2014 wing, but with their alternative plan the team did a great job,” said Sato. “They spoke to Mr Dale Coyne and borrowed his front wing – he kindly let us have it. But strictly speaking the configuration was a little bit different to what we had. It seems like nothing, but makes a huge difference and I didn’t have full performance from then on.”

Now it was a case of plugging away and seeing what opportunities came his way. Taku rose up the field, passing Carlos Munoz in the final 10 laps for 13th place and chasing Josef Newgarden all the way home. “Every pit-stop and every stint I was able to gain little by little,” he said. “Battling with Carlos was good fun, but by the time I caught Newgarden the tyres were dropping off. OK, finishing 13th is not very satisfying at all, but having both the team’s cars finishing is good. I wished for more, but we got a handful of points and showed good potential.”

The next trip is west from Florida to NOLA Motorsports Park, outside New Orleans in Louisiana. “It’s a bit like the Indy GP course,” said Sato. “There’s no elevation change, and there are complex sections, a bit Mickey Mouse in the last sector, plus a couple of fast chicanes and some longish corners – very technical. It’s quite a fun track to drive and I’m looking forward to the race.”

Jack Hawksworth took that famous Yogi Berra quote to heart in the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg today.

Hawksworth started 21st and clawed his way to an eighth place finish in the No. 41 ABC Supply Honda after trouble early in the 110-lap race. Takuma Sato, who started fifth in the No. 14 ABC Supply Honda, had contact on a restart and pitted for a new front wing. Relegated to last on lap 36, he came back to finish 13th.

Juan Pablo Montoya beat out pole winner and teammate Will Power to claim the victory. Third through fifth were Tony Kanaan, Helio Castroneves and Simon Pagenaud.

Due to Hawksworth’s early pit stop to replace the damaged front wing, his team opted for an alternate fuel strategy. As drivers began pitting for fuel around lap 22, Hawksworth advanced through the field and was third when the caution for debris was called on lap 26. On the lap 32 restart, Hawksworth lost a couple positions as the other drivers were on fresh tires. At the same time, Sato and Sebastien Bourdais made contact while battling for sixth. The hit was hard enough to damage Sato’s wing, which he limped around with until the team saw it was too damaged to continue and called him in on lap 36.

Thanks to the generosity of team owner Dale Coyne who lent the ABC Supply team one of his front wings (his car had already retired from the race), Sato was back in action.

Meanwhile, Hawksworth had pitted on lap 35 under caution and then opted to stay out during the next caution period on lap 47, so he vaulted from 15th to the lead, which he held until the race went green on lap 53. The young Brit ran in the top four until pitting on lap 70, which dropped him back to 18th. As the final round of pit stops began around lap 80, Hawksworth moved up to third again. He made his final pit stop for about three seconds of fuel on lap 95 under green. He rejoined the race in 12th position, ran his fastest lap of the race on lap 99, and then began passing more cars with just 10 laps to go.

“That was a really fun race, really entertaining,” said Hawksworth. “After the disappointment in qualifying, the guys really worked hard last night and found what was wrong and corrected it and gave me a fast car today. We lost the front wing on the first lap, replaced it then had some contact in the middle of the race and lost an end fence. I didn’t have a clue what was going on out there, I was just pushing like crazy all the way through once we got into clean air because I knew that was going to be important. The guys made good stops, got me in clean air and we finished in the top 10 from the back of the grid. I was really happy for the whole ABC Supply team. I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy with an eighth place finish before.”

Sato soldiered on and passed a few cars even though the new wing’s settings were not quite the same, and the car was not quite as good as it had been. However, with a set of new red tires in the final stint of the race, Sato set his fastest lap of the race.

“It was a tough race,” Sato said afterwards. “We got a good start and gained a position, but then after a restart, there was a bottleneck in turn 1 and I was boxed in. Bourdais and I touched and it damaged the front wing. We had to change it and that really decided our race. We were able to overtake a few positions, but the time we lost was too great and we couldn’t get back to the front. It was a tough one for our ABC Supply team but hopefully we got some good data for the next race.”

AJ Foyt Racing Team President Larry Foyt was satisfied with his ABC Supply team’s efforts this weekend.

“Jack drove a great race, and Takuma did a good job to finish,” said Foyt. “Having two cars is a great help. With the short amount of testing that we had and then coming here, we saw huge benefits from it. It was really nice to be able to validate some things, and go in different directions. For example, when we had the problem with Jack’s car in qualifying, if we were a one car team, we might have wondered if it was the setup or something mechanically with the car that could be amiss. Knowing that Takuma’s car was good with a similar setup was a huge help to us because we knew we needed to find something amiss with Jack’s car. The multi-car team is already paying dividends. Today we were able to split strategies with both cars which was exciting, and one got a top-10 out of it, so we’re definitely seeing the benefits already.”

The Verizon IndyCar Series will race for the first time at NOLA Motorsports Park outside of New Orleans on April 12th. That race will be televised by NBC Sports Network starting at 3 p.m. ET.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. March 28, 2015—Takuma Sato became the Honda standard bearer in qualifying today as he put his No. 14 ABC Supply Honda in the fifth starting slot for the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg.

Team Penske Chevrolets grabbed the first four spots in Firestone Fast Six qualifying with Will Power winning his fifth pole in the last six races here. Sato has been the only driver to unseat Power from the pole which he did last year with his pole-winning run in the No. 14 ABC Supply Honda.

“To be in the Fast Six the past two seasons, well, this track is very kind to me and we’ve been able to put in a good result in qualifying although it wasn’t on the front row today,” said Sato in the post-qualifying press conference. He added, “Congratulations to Team Penske for their dominance of qualifying and in particular, Will [Power].

Power posted a time of 1:00.6931 which was fast enough to beat Sebastian Bourdais’ 2003 track record of 1:00.928 seconds. Sato posted a time of 1:01.1496 seconds.

Teammate Jack Hawksworth didn’t fare quite as well --his No. 41 ABC Supply Honda car sustained a problem today which the team is investigating and is working to solve it before tomorrow’s final warm-up session. Hawksworth will start 21st tomorrow.

"For some reason we were struggling under braking,” said a disappointed Hawksworth who was sixth in practice yesterday and the top performer in the Honda-powered camp. He added, “The rear of the car was pretty loose and we didn't have any traction so we need to find out why. Obviously on the first day we had a pretty competitive car so we need to understand what's going on and come back better tomorrow. Fortunately we have the final warmup where we can validate what's going on."

Sato credited having a teammate to helping improve his car after yesterday’s session. “I’m very proud of our team, especially going from a one car team to a two car team, and the team worked hard to put everything together,” said Sato. “Jack had a little issue today but we gathered good data from yesterday and made a significant improvement in today’s practice session.

“The ABC Supply Team’s done a great job gathering data from the two cars and working together,” Sato said. He continued, “I was comfortable in today’s practice session so in qualifying I was able to push really hard. I’m really proud of what we’ve done as a team. Over the course of the winter they prepared to go from one car to two and that has definitely helped. Everyone did a great job.”

Power will be joined on the front row by his new teammate Simon Pagenaud. Helio Castroneves and Juan Pablo Montoya are in Row 2, while Sato and Chevy-powered Sebastian Bourdais are in Row 3.

The teams will have a final warm-up session from 12:00 to 12:30. The race will be broadcast live on ABC-TV starting at 3:00 p.m. ET.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. March 27, 2015—The ABC Supply team got off to a solid start in St. Petersburg today with Jack Hawksworth and Takuma Sato putting the ABC Supply Hondas in the top half of the 24-car field. The drivers were on track for just one practice session with rain washing out the second session in the late afternoon.

Hawksworth posted a time of 1 minute, 1.8713 seconds which was the quickest of the Honda-powered cars and sixth fastest overall. Sato was 12th quickest at 1 minute, 2.1274 seconds and the third quickest Honda.

“We thought we weren’t going to get any running in today [because the forecast was for rain], so it was nice to get on track and get some driving in,” said Hawksworth, who is making his debut this weekend in the No. 41 ABC Supply Honda. “I think we started off quite strong and the baseline of the car seems pretty good, so I’m quite excited to see what we can do tomorrow. Compared to last year’s car, we see a lot more grip so we can brake later and carry a little bit more speed through the corners. The practice times were faster than qualifying last year so that shows you how much grip the cars are generating this year.”

“It’s great to be back in St. Pete,” said Sato, who won the Verizon P-1 Pole Award last year with a time of 1 minute, 1.8668 seconds in his No. 14 ABC Supply Honda. “We waited for so long over the winter. The past two weeks we went testing to prepare for this event. The car worked pretty well the first session but we need to adjust more for the new aero and increased downforce. The lap times are already as quick as last year’s qualifying. It’s going to be a lot faster tomorrow and I’m looking forward to having a good practice before qualifying. Hopefully, in qualifying we’ll be strong.”

Eclipsing Sato’s pole-winning time was Verizon IndyCar Series champion Will Power who posted a time of 1 minute, 1.4709 seconds in his Chevy-powered car.

There will be a 45-minute practice at 12:30 p.m. ET tomorrow. Qualifying begins at 4:15 p.m. The Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg will be televised live on ABC Sunday afternoon starting at 3 p.m. ET.