Sato turns teacher to find Japan's next F1 heroes

When he won the 2017 Indianapolis 500 at the age of 40, Takuma Sato would have known that he was considerably closer to the end of his top-line career than the start of it. Now 42, he's still an IndyCar Series contender - fifth in the 2019 points, with a dominant win at Barber Motorsports Park under his belt - but he's already moved into what could be regarded as a post-career role.

That role is to find new Japanese talent to represent Honda in Formula 1, just as Sato did in 2002-08. Recent proteges of the manufacturer have impressed from time to time in Formula 2/GP2 and GP3, and now two new recruits have headed west to try to make a splash in the inaugural FIA Formula 3 Championship. Sato will help them, as he will all those who follow.

That's because he has been appointed as principal of the SRS-Formula and SRS-Kart elements of the Suzuka Circuit Racing School, with fellow ex-Formula 1/Indycar racer Shinji Nakano as vice-principal. Note the usage of the 'principal' title - this is set up as a proper educational institution, not your regular racing school.

Sato himself was the star graduate of the SRS-F school in 1997, winning a free drive in the Japanese Formula 3 Championship. After one race start, he converted that with Honda's blessing into a ticket to the UK in order to make his way in Europe towards his ambition: F1.

Back then, it was Japanese racing hero Satoru Nakajima who was principal of SRS-F, as he had been since its foundation in 1995, and he remained at the helm all the way through to this year, when he stood down and was replaced by Sato.

"He of course was a pioneer for Japanese drivers," Sato says of Nakajima, "and basically this is the first time they've ever changed the principal - from him to me. So I'm just really honoured - when I was there 22 years ago, I never would have expected to become the principal!

"My job is basically to oversee the curriculum at the school - not day by day [that's Nakano's task], because obviously I'm still racing myself. And as principal my job is philosophy, to give good confidence and some hope to young drivers and supporters - which in this case is mainly parents. Honda wanted to change a lot in terms of the curriculum and philosophy, slowly and surely.

"SRS is my really important starting point, because without that school I don't think truly I would have got the opportunity to go racing at the highest competition levels. I started racing at that school when I was 20 - before that I was just doing karts and bicycles. The reason the school exists is really to give a great opportunity for young drivers to race overseas and of course to become world-class drivers, and it gave me the opportunity to expand my dream.

"So I always wanted to do something for the school, to support it, for the past 20 years. I have done a few supports for junior drivers at the school but it hasn't been a regular thing, because I have still been competing overseas.

"Since I am competing in IndyCar, Shinji does the day-to-day stuff at the school, and he is definitely the main man for the SRS-F and SRS-K - he will be there almost 100%. Both Shinji and I have seen very similar scenery through the States and Europe, so philosophy-wise we are very, very similar. Certainly I have a huge respect for him too."

"In my year there were 10 times more than they were capable of having - suddenly there were 70 drivers trying to get in" Takuma Sato

Since Sato made it to F1, the only Japanese Honda protege to follow in his footsteps has been his much-maligned 2006 Super Aguri team-mate Yuji Ide. The rival FTRS academy of Toyota boosted Kazuki Nakajima (who admirably avoided his father's Honda scheme to make it in his own right) and Kamui Kobayashi to the top level, but there has been little sign of a Japanese driver lining up for F1 race seat in the past few years.

"The drivers have been quite successful but unfortunately F1 is such a difference," says Sato. "There are multiple different angles that you really need - not just raw talent. Shinji and I have a lot of experience outside Japan, so we can definitely help young Japanese drivers, who are very talented but basically don't know the culture difference overseas. We can support them, the earlier the better, to prepare them."

That is exactly the area in which Sato can make a difference - when he arrived in the UK in 1998 he barely spoke a word of English, but learned the language (partly from reading the Dallara F3 manual!) and quickly fitted in with the British motorsport culture, and later the American.

In his days at SRS-F the school used cars based on "a Ron Tauranac-designed aluminium honeycomb monocoque, and Hughie Absalom [whose Diamond Racing team Sato drove for during his first 18 months in the UK] was also part of the design of it. Back then it was very basic."

Basic it may have been, but drivers were attracted by that prize of a full season in Japanese F3 thanks to the eye-opening performances of the winner of the initial scholarship in 1995 during his campaign with Satoru Nakajima's team the next year.

"The very first winner was Koji Yamanishi [who went on to make three Le Mans 24 Hours starts with the Japanese Lamborghini team]," says Sato. "He was a great karter but then he got the first scholarship from SRS. And he immediately jumped in the F3 car and showed great performance - he was competing for the championship until the very last race with Mr Wakisaka [Juichi, who went on to a long top-line career in Japan]. And that was a sensation.

"After that people realised that Koji had such a great environment, so winning the scholarship and getting the best seat in F3 was even better than spending three years in junior formulas. Back then there were very few drivers at the school but, because of his performance, in my year there were 10 times more than they were capable of having - suddenly there were 70 drivers trying to get in."

Sato's year, 1997, was exceptionally strong. Among the opposition who missed out were Toshihiro Kaneishi, who would win the German F3 Championship in 2001 (the same year Sato won the British championship), and Tsugio Matsuda, who has won two titles apiece in Formula Nippon and Super GT.

Sato acknowledges that "I was the first guy to use the scholarship abroad", but others followed in his footsteps. For 1999, that ancient Tauranac training car was replaced by the school-run Formula Dream series, with new carbonfibre monocoque single-seaters built by Dome.

The first three champions - Ide, Kosuke Matsuura and Shinya Hosokawa - all went on to race F3 in Europe, with Matsuura a runner-up in the German championship before forging an IndyCar career. Hideki Mutoh had already tried his hand in British Formula Ford before he returned to Japan to win the Formula Dream title in 2003, which he used to launch a US career that culminated in IndyCar. The last FDream champion, Kodai Tsukakoshi in 2005, looked a potential ace in the F3 Euro Series in 2008 before being sent back to Japan.

"They have huge pressure and they have to succeed within a year or two otherwise they have to come back to Japan" Takuma Sato

After Formula Dream, Honda placed its scholars in the Formula Renault-equivalent Formula Challenge Japan. This produced Honda talents such as current Japanese domestic racing superstar Naoki Yamamoto, Tomoki Nojiri and Nobuharu Matushita, before that series was dropped and the Japanese F4 Championship was launched in 2015, and became the proving ground for the scholars from Honda's SRS-F and Toyota's FTRS.

Meanwhile, after a fallow period, Honda began sending drivers back to Europe. Takuya Izawa - already a long-time racer in Japan's top series - had a 'sighting' season in GP2 with ART Grand Prix in 2014, before Matsushita became the first Honda rising star of his generation to be placed at that level in Europe. The following year, Nirei Fukuzumi embarked upon the first of his three years in Europe, and proved a potent threat to Charles Leclerc and Alex Albon within ART's GP3 line-up. In 2017, Tadasuke Makino was sent to European F3, and became a race winner in F2 last season.

Matsushita was sent back to Japan for 2018, ditto Fukuzumi and Makino this year, although Matsushita has returned to the F2 grid for 2019 thanks to sourcing commercial support to complement his Honda backing. All three impressed in Europe, and arguably didn't deserve to be dragged back to their homeland's racing scene, but such is the pressure to prove your worth.

"They have huge pressure," admits Sato, "and they have to succeed within a year or two otherwise they have to come back to Japan. It's a shame Fukuzumi and Makino had to come back, but they are still young drivers and if they show the performance and maturity I think they both have a bright future."

And this is where the new regime of Sato and Nakano could have helped them. "They have such a limited time in terms of the scholarship," says Sato. "So they don't have time to learn other things [about European racing culture]. It is essential to prepare before you go abroad, and that's going to be changed a lot at SRS I think."

Interestingly, Honda's latest newcomers to Europe - FIA F3 recruits Yuki Tsunoda and Teppei Natori - have graduated directly from Japanese F4, in which they were champion and runner-up respectively in 2018, rather than spending a season or two in the Japanese F3 Championship.

"It's given young drivers a lot of hope to reach the highest level in F1" Takuma Sato

Sato believes that the leading F4 championships - such as Japan's - are on a par with national F3 in his days: "We're trying to give them an opportunity at an earlier stage. Obviously F3 is incredibly competitive, and it's such an important category, but F4 is now a standard worldwide - almost like my days in F3. So I think it's good for them to compete season one or two in Japan, and then go to Europe. That's the reason behind it."

Coincidentally, both Natori in F3 (and in his parallel Euroformula Open campaign) and Matsushita are racing this year with the team of Trevor Carlin, whose squad was set on its route to worldwide single-seater powerhouse by Sato's dominant 2001 F3 season. With Carlin also in the IndyCar paddock overseeing his operation in the US, there's plenty of feedback to his former driver.

"I see Trevor at almost every race and he's a happy chap as usual!" bubbles Sato. "And Trevor being Trevor, he's very excited to get a new opportunity with young Japanese drivers. For Nobu it's a second return, which is unique in terms of the scholarship, but he got a great opportunity so he must really perform well this year.

"Natori has a lot of potential and Trevor seems to be liking him a lot - it must remind him of our good old days building up the environment! In my days Carlin Motorsport was very small - I think it was only 10 people or something. And now it's one of the biggest and most successful formula teams in the world. Certainly if we can collaborate in the future that's great."

Of course, that's the second step. The first is to unearth the young talents at the school, and that's something Sato is hugely looking forward to. "I am very excited, looking forward to seeing everyone progress," he says. "It's my first proper involvement in a proper scholarship, and I can't wait until 2020 as a result to see how they compete in F4."

The first attendance for Sato was at a welcoming ceremony at Suzuka a month ago, where a tie-up between SRS-F and the French federation (the FFSA) was announced - another step towards helping the scholars integrate themselves in Europe: "We haven't decided what we're going to do together, but probably an exchange programme or something, so the young Japanese drivers are able to get experience on how it's going to be in Europe before they actually go to the racing."

And, of course, the final step is F1 - and that's something increasingly alluring as Honda's engines gain respectability with Red Bull and Toro Rosso. "We have huge expectations," says Sato. "It's given young drivers a lot of hope to reach the highest level in F1. Honda wanted to change a lot because they have failed to produce an F1 driver for 15 years or so, and that's part of the reason I was chosen. Obviously this project is long-term, because young drivers need time to grow up. I don't expect to have a radical change or immediate results, but over the next few years it will be very interesting to help them up."

In the meantime, it's off to the Indy 500 for Sato. No matter how long he stays in IndyCar, you can imagine him staying at SRS-F into his late sixties, enthusiastically spotting the future talents who all look upon him as a racing hero, just as he did Nakajima-San 22 years ago.