Takuma Sato: Can he beat Jenson at home?

Third place at Indianapolis seemed to mark the end of Takuma's appalling bad luck with reliability, but in France he was again in trouble. Indeed when he came to a smoky stop after the inevitable engine failure he became the only top 10 runner to retire all day, and in fact the only driver to suffer a mechanical failure. It really was a case of déjà vu all over again.

"It's frustrating," says Sato. "But I could say it was a very different engine problem or failure compared to the last few races. So obviously after the one problem has gone we have another one. But this is a new spec of engine, and this is a result of them putting such a hard effort into making a better engine."

The failure came right after a pit stop, much like previous race blow-ups, but Taku insists that the original fault has been addressed and it was a dissimilar issue this time around.

"It was very different. You could see the other engine problem is such a sudden, big blow. But this time it was so gradual. I perhaps had the problem right at he beginning, because I had a problem with straightline speed. Before the pit stop the mechanics saw some little smoke coming out already, and then after the pit stop the power went down, and I heard a really bad noise as well."

Overall, it was not a great weekend. Jenson Button finished fifth, within touching distance of third, but felt that lack of straightline speed was a major handicap. Taku agrees that form took a dip.

"We expected to be stronger in France, and we weren't. A bit like Canada! So it's a bit mixed emotions. But Renault and McLaren were going quicker. Pace wise, we struggled a little bit. Inside the cockpit it wasn't too bad, especially in qualifying. It felt reasonably good. But just the lap time didn't come together, for the first time this season."

The worrying development for BAR in France was the dominance of Ferrari. Of late it has appeared that the team was in a position to challenge the World Champions for victory - that would certainly have been the case in Indy, had the reaction to the safety car been different. But at Magny-Cours the gap seemed to grow once more.

"It was a very unique strategy, doing four pit stops. But I think they could do it because they have a capable car, with a lot of speed and consistency through long distances. They are at the moment unbelievably strong. But I'm sure we can catch them. All of us are really looking forward to the British GP."

Taku is well aware that the pressure will be on Jenson this weekend, and if he fares well against the local hero, it won't do him any harm.

BAR has been strong at a lot of venues this year, and slightly less so at a few others. The team does of course know Silverstone well from testing, but the same could be said for Barcelona, which was a huge disappointment. It remains to be seen whether the track will favour the car.

"I believe it will. But like Canada and France, we said publicly that we would be very strong! But obviously it wasn't. Perhaps we should say Silverstone will be reasonably good, and we'll try to do our best. But I do think it will be pretty strong."

Invariably Silverstone tends to be an unusual race, either because of rain or some other factor. Perhaps an upset of some sort will give everyone a better chance to beat Ferrari.

"You never know. It sometimes works for us, sometimes it works for them. But typically we have a very exciting race because of the weather and so on. We want to make every effort to approach it in a positive way."

Sato did his career a lot of good by winning the British GP F3 support race in 2001, and in fact he saw a lot more of Silverstone than he did Suzuka in the early days of his career. So is it a second home for him?

"It is, very much so," he agrees. "No doubt about it. Living in England now, it's really a second home. From a personal point of view I have lots and lots of good memories from junior formulas, so I'm personally looking forward to it."