Sometimes a driver’s ‘best-driven’ race doesn’t land him in Victory Lane. That was the case today with Takuma Sato who drove a brilliant—and valiant–race to finish second in the Itaipava Sao Paulo Indy 300. James Hinchcliffe passed Sato coming off the last corner to claim his second win of the season.
Sato took over the IZOD IndyCar points lead as A.J. Foyt’s ABC Supply team heads to Indianapolis as the points leader.
Starting 12th, Sato made great moves on the starts and restarts to live up to his philosophy of “No Attack. No Chance.” He picked up positions every time without losing any bodywork – a feat in itself on the streets of Sao Paulo—so that by lap 34 he was leading the race. He pitted four laps later during a caution, but that call was a gamble on the part of Team Foyt who could have stayed out a few more laps as many others did.
That call set up another gamble during a lap 52 caution as the team made abandoned their Conserve Fuel strategy, gave up P-6 on the track, ducked in for fuel only—and no tires. When the stops cycled out, however, Sato was in P-4! He moved into the lead on lap 57 for the second time and held off repeated attacks from Josef Newgarden and later Hinchcliffe, both on fresher tires.
In the final 15 laps of the 75-lap race however, the no. 14 car began getting looser with every lap as Sato’s quick hands fought to maintain control and the lead. He managed to do just that until the final turn of the final lap of the race. Hinchcliffe zipped past and took the checkered, while Sato took second and the points lead.
“We chose the strategy to come into the pit when we were leading [lap 35] but we had 40 laps left,” Sato said after climbing out of the car. “The guys did a tremendous job calling the race. It was difficult because the tires go off quite a lot compared to Hinch and Newgarden. I also had a slight issue with the brakes and I was really hanging on, but obviously Hinch did a great maneuver—congrats on his second win of this season. We didn’t think we had a car today capable of winning but what a strong comeback for the AJ Foyt Racing team. Really happy. The guys did a tremendous job.”
“It’s been a great turnaround for our team for sure,” Team Director Larry Foyt said. “We struggled for speed actually this weekend in Brazil, we struggled to find a set up. Takuma just drove another good race and the guys had good pit stops. It was funny the way the yellows were falling. It was kind of a gamble on what we did and we got lucky it worked out. We had a chance to win it and Takuma had a chance to win it, but we ran out of tires at the end. The guys, our engineers and Takuma just never gave up. I am really proud of them.”
A.J. Foyt, who didn’t make the trip to Brazil, was even more enthused in his comments, saying, “From what I could tell, he drove a helluva race considering the tires were probably worn out. The crew did a good job on calling the race because if they had to change tires, they wouldn’t have been up there, so it was a gamble and it paid off.”
