Sato pulls off surprise with 18th on grid.
Although 18th place on the grid does not often stir much of a reaction, few failed to be impressed by Takuma Sato in qualifying for the United States Grand Prix, who proved his love for the Indianapolis circuit to out qualify Nico Rosberg, Jarno Trulli and Tonio Liuzzi in his Super Aguri.
Although 18th place on the grid does not often stir much of a reaction, few failed to be impressed by Takuma Sato in qualifying for the United States Grand Prix, who proved his love for the Indianapolis circuit to out qualify Nico Rosberg, Jarno Trulli and Tonio Liuzzi in his Super Aguri.
Regularly rooted to the bottom of the timesheets in practice, qualifying and the race, Super Aguri are holding tight until their new car arrives at the German Grand Prix. However, Sato, who visited the United States Grand Prix podium in 2004, was able to put in a good enough late lap to leapfrog some impressive names.
Indeed, the Japanese driver was delighted to have secured the team's best ever qualifying position.
"It was a fantastic Qualifying session. We made good progress throughout the practice sessions and the car has felt good all weekend. To be able to set our best Qualifying position and to be competitive in quite gusty and very hot conditions is great. I am extremely happy to be in this position for the race tomorrow and would like to thank everyone in the team for their hard work so far this weekend."
"He did a very good job," added team principal Aguri Suzuki. "His qualifying time was perfect and his car was performing well. Taku's mechanics and engineers did a great job today and I am very happy that we finished in 18th position for the first time."
However, things for team-mate Franck Montagny continued to go from bad to worse after electronic problems prevented him from making an impression of qualifying. These problems came after Montagny did barely any laps in Friday practice when he spun early on.
"It has been a bad day, again. During qualifying we had another problem and this cannot keep happening every race weekend. It makes it extremely difficult to concentrate on what you are supposed to be doing because you have to focus on solving the problems and not on making progress. I hope we have a better day tomorrow but right now I am very disappointed about this qualifying position for me."
