The journey from two-wheel pedal-powered racing to the pinnacle of motorsport competition laid bare: little more than a decade ago, Takuma Sato was a teenaged bicycle racer in Japan, dreaming that his two-wheeled chain-driven mount was a powerful racing car. Now that dream is reality, as he is established as one of the Formula 1 elite.
In 1996, he scraped together what money he had to buy a kart and, the following year, to enter Honda's Suzuka Racing School scholarship. He won the prize, a fully paid drive in the 1998 All-Japan Formula 3 Championship, but passed it up in order to pursue his desire of reaching Formula One. To do that he had to go to Europe.
Arriving in mid '98, he contested a handful of Formula Vauxhall Junior races, mainly with the small Diamond Racing team, then at the end of the year graduated with Diamond to Formula Opel. In '99, his first full year of car racing, he took sixth place in the hotly contested EFDA Formula Opel Euroseries, and also competed in the last few rounds of the British F3 Championship in Class B and won the Macau Grand Prix support race for AF2000 cars with the Meritus Team.
Sato joined Carlin Motorsport for 2000 to compete in the F3 'A' class, winning a total of five races and taking third place in the British championship. By now he had been noticed by Grand Prix teams, and in December got his first F1 tests with Jordan and British American Racing. BAR signed him as a test driver for 2001, and he also became contracted to Honda for the first time.
Remaining in F3 for 2001, Sato started the season as clear favourite for the British championship, with good reason. He dominated the championship and broke the record for the number of wins in the British F3 Championship - his total of 16 overall victories in the 2000/01 seasons is still unbeaten today. On top of that, he took first place in the Marlboro Masters of F3 at Zandvoort and the International race supporting the British Grand Prix.
He also impressed with his test outings for BAR, which took place mainly at Silverstone and Mugello.
Sato ended his Formula 3 career on a high when he won the Macau Grand Prix in November 2001, taking victory in both the preliminary qualifying event and the main race and providing further evidence of the outstanding talent which had earned him a seat in Formula 1 with Jordan Grand Prix in 2002.
On the announcement in October 2001 of his signing to Jordan, Sato commented, "I am very excited about joining Jordan and am very much looking forward to starting my F1 racing career. This is a fantastic opportunity and I feel a great sense of satisfaction as this is the goal I set out to achieve by deciding to race for a second year in Formula 3 and combine this with Formula 1 testing."
It was a dramatic first year in the world's premier motorsport category. Partnered with the highly rated Italian Giancarlo Fisichella, it was a season of ups and downs; but it was a season which ended with Takuma Sato scoring his first F1 points in a sensational race at Suzuka where he came home in fifth place.
In 2003, as the BAR team's third driver, he was central to the development of the Honda-powered BAR Honda 005 and 006 race cars. At the final race of the year he substituted at short notice for regular race driver Jacques Villeneuve at Suzuka and scored three points with a fantastic drive to 6th place.
Having secured the full race seat for 2004, Takuma entered his second full year of F1 racing with a much improved team and car. Early testing suggested that the BAR Honda 006 would be a strong performer - and so it was.
Sato scored 34 world championship points in total to secure eighth place in the drivers' championship and help BAR finish as runners-up to Ferrari in the constructors' title race - in what proved to be a best ever season for both driver and team. During the course of the year, Taku scored points at half of the 18 races, including a maiden podium in the United States GP at Indianapolis, and also secured his first front row start at the Nurburgring for the European Grand Prix.
Taku remained with BAR in 2005 and despite a difficult season, in which the whole team struggled in comparison to the previous year, he never gave up.
After the disappointment of losing his fifth place finish at the San Marino GP, when the team was excluded due to an alleged technical irregularity, which also saw them have to sit out the next two grand’s prix, Taku persevered to take a point at the Hungarian GP. He also managed to qualify in the top ten on seven occasions, including a fifth place at his home event and at the Italian GP.
For 2006 there was a move to the ambitious new, Honda-powered, Super Aguri team. Set up by Aguri Suzuki (who before Sato was the only Japanese driver to score a Grand Prix podium finish) and run by former Ferrari team manager Daniel Audetto, the team moved into the base of the old TWR Arrows concern in Oxfordshire. It had no staff, no drivers and no cars. Yet within a couple of months, Sato was leading the team's attack in the opening race of the season.
There was little Taku could do but help the team grow, and also to humble some of the bigger teams with some sterling performances in the early laps of the races - notably in Australia. At the end of the year, Super Aguri's best ever performance meant Sato finished 10th in Brazil. Amazingly, his SA06B chassis was a modified version of a 2002-model Arrows A22, which had been commandeered from its place on display outside the duty-free shop at Melbourne Airport at the start of the year!
There's no such thing as an overnight sensation in F1 any more, certainly as far as team performances are concerned, but hopes were high that the new Super Aguri SA07 would perform in 2007.
Even so, no-one expected Taku, who was reunited with former Formula 3 and BAR-Honda team-mate Anthony Davidson, to make it through to Q3, the final top-10 qualifying shoot-out, at the season-opening Australian Grand Prix. Not even the team, which suddenly had to think of a strategy for the session! The display marked Super Aguri and Sato out as a force to be reckoned with for the new season, and they have not disappointed.
Firmly up among the midfield runners, Taku gave Honda its first point of the year as an engine supplier with an eighth place in the Spanish Grand Prix.
He then put in a startling display in the Canadian Grand Prix to take a superb sixth place, a race which included passing moves on Kimi Raikkonen and Fernando Alonso. The breathtaking move on the latter in the closing stages of the race earned him the ‘Overtake of the Year’ award from F1 Racing magazine and he finished the year 17th in the drivers’ championship.
The 2008 season started with Super Aguri in dire financial problems owing to a default on payments from sponsors during the previous year. With virtually no testing during the winter, and with the SA08 car far from optimised because of that, it was always going to be a struggle.
Nevertheless Taku battled well, and would have scored points in the opening race in Australia had it not been for a retirement. After four races, during which Taku’s best result was 13th in Spain, the team was forced to withdraw from F1, leaving him and team-mate Anthony Davidson without a drive.
Taku is now firmly focused on trying to return to Formula 1 as soon as possible. Speaking in May 2008, he vowed: “I have no intention to retire from F1. I feel I am driving at the top of my game and want to give so much more to my fans and supporters in Japan and worldwide who have been so incredibly supportive to me during my whole career.”
