Toronto’s street circuit around the city’s Exhibition Place is a fickle venue. Catch a caution at the wrong time, and the most competitive runners can be consigned to a midfield finish. Such a misfortune befell Takuma Sato in the latest round of the Verizon IndyCar Series. Not only did the race’s second and last caution drop him from the fringes of the top six virtually to the back of the field, but a collision on the restart lap left him to finish 16th, despite potential race-winning pace.

Sato and the Andretti Autosport team arrived north of the border in Canada hopeful of a strong weekend, and free practice on Friday looked promising. “It was a productive practice day,” he summarised. “It was not perfect but we were trying different things. We feel competitive on street circuits, a little bit more comfortable, and we were just trying to figure out the best way. In terms of speed and balance it was coming, and I was happy.

“Toronto is one of the bumpiest tracks apart from Detroit, but even more so because the surface changes multiple times in one corner. The approach is on asphalt, but then it goes to concrete, asphalt again and then concrete in the same corner. Whatever set-up you have, you have understeer, oversteer. You have to set the car up for each corner before the concrete patch because when you hit it you’re just a passenger.”

The #26 Dallara-Honda was 10th and eighth in Friday’s two sessions, then eighth again on Saturday morning: “Now we were looking towards qualifying, and our pace was really strong. It was only a matter of not running new tyres, so we were confident we could challenge.”

In the first qualifying segment Taku was third in his group, easily making it through to the next phase, but at the second hurdle he slipped to 10th, so he failed to make it through to the Firestone Fast Six and would start the race from the fifth row. “The first segment went really well,” he said. “In Q2 I was fifth on the first runs, which would have been enough to get through, but then there was a red flag so the second runs were a one-lap deal for everyone. Unfortunately I had traffic in front of me going really slow on my warm-up lap, so I couldn’t get the temperature in the tyres. I failed to improve and everyone went quicker, which is a real shame.”

The race set-up was put on in time for Sunday’s warm-up, in which Sato was seventh. “We were changing it more than usual between qualifying and the race,” he said. “Garrett Mothersead, my engineer, did a great job to put it together. I was not the quickest but a lot of people were using push-to-pass and I didn’t even use the red [softer] tyre so I knew top three was possible. That was positive and even more positive was that it could be raining, which I always enjoy, but it didn’t happen!”

At the start of the race, Taku instantly passed Max Chilton to move up to ninth, then rounded team-mate Alexander Rossi at Turn 1 to go eighth. But he ran into a cul-de-sac on the back straight, allowing Rossi back ahead, and simultaneously Scott Dixon and Will Power collided. The #26 emerged in seventh place. “The start was pretty good,” said Sato. “I was quite excited to go three or four-wide into Turn 1. I was faster than the cars on the back straight but there was no room so I had to back off the throttle because it was a little bit risky. Then there was chaos in front with bits and pieces flying. Even after that I could have repassed Alex at Turn 5 but everyone was piling up together and I couldn’t risk going inside the kerb and getting a penalty, so I backed off and let him go.”

The majority of cars were on the softer red tyres, which had quite high degradation. Conversely, Spencer Pigot was on the harder blacks and made progress up the order after the restart. Taku was running seventh behind Rossi, and both Andretti drivers were hemmed in behind the struggling James Hinchcliffe. “We had quite a lot of grip at first but then the drop-off was quite big,” he explained. “Alex tried to overtake Hinchcliffe all over the place but he couldn’t make it before the fuel window opened.”

Just before this, Sato got a run at Rossi around the outside at Turn 3, but couldn’t make the move stick and the charging Pigot got through instead. Immediately Rossi pitted, with Hinchcliffe in one lap later.

“I thought a couple of good laps, and then the plan was to get ahead of the two of them, but then the yellow came at a really unfortunate moment and I was among those who were destroyed by this. Pigot’s pace had confirmed that the black tyre was the best and I had two new sets available, but then all the disappointments came together…”

The rest of the field – including Taku – pitted under caution and rejoined at the back of the line, and then the #26 clashed with Pigot on the restart lap. “Toronto Turn 3 is a great overtaking point,” he said, “from over 180mph on the straight to 60mph. And if you go side by side at the Turn 3 right-hander, Turn 4 is a left so you get the line. In the drivers’ briefing Brian Barnhart the race director was talking about just respecting each other, give each other space, be careful, be smart.

“With Spencer I was not quite alongside but I had probably half the car alongside and more momentum than him. I could see him checking the mirror so I knew he had seen me and that’s why I went side by side, and he just shut the door. I was sandwiched, and hit the wall on the left, and got a puncture on the right front, and the tyre tread delaminated and knocked the front-wing endplate off. It was such a shame and unnecessary, because he squeezed me.”

Brilliant track. I was happy, but wishing for another yellow – or rain!”

Becausethe race on reds again after his next stop. He caught and passed Conor Daly for 16th, but as the reds went off he then had to fend off Daly, with the leaders closing in once more: “At least I was showing strong performance but the degradation started and the last five laps I was just hanging on. Extremely disappointing, but it was nice to see my team-mates very strong and Alex get a great result with second.”

Next up is a rare race weekend off before the field reconvenes at leafy Mid-Ohio. But there’s no rest. “We’ll go through all the engineering,” said Taku, who remains seventh in points. “We really need to get a lot of points in the championship and have good speed at Mid-Ohio. I’m looking forward to going back there, because I should have had a podium last year. I usually enjoy it there so hopefully we can be competitive.”

“I'm disappointed with the way the race turned out today. We made a good start, and made a few positions up. Just after the yellow, coming to Turn 3, I was on the outside and then in Turn 4 I was on the inside alongside [Spencer] Pigot and he just turned into me. I was sandwiched by him and the wall and had nowhere to go. We tangled and we got a puncture and that was it. After that there wasn't another yellow, so I tried to catch up with the field and overtake a few cars but couldn't get there. It’s a shame; the car worked really well. I think we were one of the strongest of the group in the field in terms of the pace, so it’s really a shame.”

“I’m disappointed with the qualifying result. We had a good car and had a good lap time in the first round. We moved on to the second round and until the red flag, the car felt quite positive. We ran into traffic on the last lap of the session – there was only one lap to qualify after the red flag – so we didn’t make it. It’s a shame, but we will concentrate on tomorrow’s race. It will be a survival race and hopefully we will have a good car and good race tomorrow.”

“It was a good session and it’s so nice to be back in Toronto. The fans are always ­so enthusiastic here. I really appreciate all the support, everybody comes to see us. We had good weather today. The car is working well, too. I think it was a productive session and we learned a lot. We still need to work hard, but we have a little room to go faster tomorrow, so I’m quite looking forward to that.”