Rd.7 TEXAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY RACING REPORT BY MARCUS SIMMONS
Another strong run in an IZOD IndyCar Series race for Takuma Sato ended in disappointment on Saturday night when he crashed at Texas Motor Speedway – after charging from 20th on the grid to sixth place.
Sato was making up places hand over fist and had latched onto the leading runners when the incident happened on the 64th lap of the 228-lap race.
Taku arrived at the high-banked 1.5-mile oval hoping to build on his sensational Indianapolis 500 performance, but the Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing team had work to do in order to trim his Dallara-Honda to the right set-up for the low-downforce aerodynamic set-up that was introduced in order to minimise the chances of ‘pack racing’.
“It was an interesting weekend from that point of view,” he said. “We needed to go to the low-downforce package after an agreement from the teams and drivers. First practice was quite difficult. It used to be quite easy flat when you were running on your own at Texas, but this time it definitely wasn’t!
“There was a lot of work, especially for the team. It was our first time at an oval this year other than Indy and it was quite challenging because unfortunately we were massively out of envelop where we should be and had to come back to pit after two laps, but every time we went out we were gaining a lot of ground. It was getting better all the time.”
The developments by the team resulted in Sato going an encouraging 10th fastest in qualifying. “We hadn’t been able to test anything, so to achieve 10th we should be very happy about. It was good, but there was a lot of work for the driver to do in the car, getting around that oval with low downforce at nearly 215mph!”
In the post-qualifying practice session Taku was fourth fastest, but a problem would mean he was relegated 10 places to 20th on the grid out of the 23-car field. “I was quite happy with the balance,” he said. “Still we wanted to improve, but it was good progress made. I wanted more mechanical grip but we did all we could do and we were pretty confident.
“Unfortunately I had an engine problem in that final practice session and we had to change it, and the rules mean that you have to drop 10 places on the grid when that happens. So I had to start from 20th, but at Texas it is not as difficult as other places to make up positions, so I wasn’t too much worried about it.”
When the race began, the #15 Rahal Letterman Lanigan machine started making progress up the field. “It was good at the start. I made a few places up and tried to settle into the race, and one by one I gained positions up to 13th. It was very challenging because of the low downforce – we had to lift on every single corner – but it was also good fun.
“We had balance issues, but so did everyone else and in that situation I was able to race well.”
The field pitted at the first caution period, and Sato moved up again: “We made some changes to the front wing and the team got me out in 10th place, boys done a great job at the pit stop. I made some really good gains at the restart and must have overtaken three cars! I felt comfortable and I was up to sixth, directly behind Ryan Briscoe.
“Obviously the front pack is much faster, and now I was just hanging on to them and the car was starting to slide. After the pit stop, my car felt much more on the knife-edge and having problem on snap over steer… After some 20 more laps done on the second stint from new tyres, I suddenly lost back end at the exit of Turn 2 and did 360 then hit the outside wall at the back stretch.. It was very disappointing because we had looked strong. In other corners we had a lot of understeer but here, at Turn 2, it was different and overall everything was quite edgy.”
Still, Sato and the Rahal Letterman Lanigan team can take positives from the pace shown into next weekend’s race, which is another oval but of significantly different nature – the famed Milwaukee Mile.
“This weekend was a very different race to what we usually see from Texas. Sometimes it was two-wide but never three-wide, like we had with pack racing. Still, now we have some good experience and a lot of ideas to take forward.
“I’m very much looking forward to Milwaukee. It’s an oval, but it’s just like driving a road course. It’s a very exciting track so I’m hoping for a great weekend.”
