Takuma Sato Q&A

"It will be good. It's a real shame of course that I will not race for Jordan next year, but I fully understand the situation now and I leave the team on good terms. They boosted me a lot and we achieved a lot. It was a fantastic experience with Jordan, but we had to find the next opportunity with BAR. Obviously going back to being a test driver is not ideal, but I will be developing a car that I could be racing in 2004, which will be good preparation. And who knows, there might even be a chance to race in 2003 as I am the reserve race driver."



"Exactly. Since the German Grand Prix in late July I had hardly any testing apart from 50-kilometre shakedowns. All I had was one day at Monza and two days at Silverstone between then and the final round at Suzuka. I've spoken to [BAR tester] Anthony Davidson about it - I know him well because we were Formula 3 team-mates in 2001 - and he did maybe twice as much mileage driving a Formula 1 car as me! And mileage is so important in Formula 1."



"It's definitely a good thing. It will make me much stronger I think. Formula 1 cars are full of technology and it takes time to find improvements. It's a good opportunity to drive the car a lot."



"Yes, very happy. There have been some changes at the team since I was there as a test driver but I still know a lot of the people there and enjoyed working with them before. I am already excited about the possibility of a race seat in 2004. That will be fantastic!"