Sato to Get New Chassis

Sato has failed to match the pace of teammate Jenson Button so far this season and in Bahrain, after struggling with a continued handling imbalance, the Japanese driver began to suspect a problem with his race chassis.

The BAR 007/02 was the car that he crashed during qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix and the problems may be as a result of that incident.

Speaking to Autosport-Atlas about the problems, Sato said: "Something was odd with that car and something strange was happening - although I could not pinpoint what it was."

With the new chassis, number 05, having been finished this week, the team decided that rather than follow their usual protocol and give the car to the test team, it will now be used by Sato as his race machine.

BAR technical director Geoff Willis said: "On the race team we have chassis numbers 02, 03 and 04. Chassis 01 is a test car at the moment and this week we have a brand new chassis, 05, that has been driven by Anthony Davidson so far. That will likely be raced by Taku."