 Takuma Sato celebrates his first F1 podium at the 2004 USGP Takuma Sato (佐藤琢磨), born January 28, 1977, is a Japanese Formula One automobile racing driver.
Unusually, Takuma (Taku) has very little racing experience in his native country. Although he began his karting career in Japan, Sato moved to England in 1998 to pursue a career in European racing. Through 1998 and 1999 he raced in Junior Formula races throughout the continent, moving to the British Formula 3 championship at the end of 1999. In 2000 and 2001 he pursued full seasons in British Formula 3, finishing third in 2000 and winning the championship in 2001, winning 16 races in the two years, plus international races at Spa-Francorchamps, Zandvoort, and Macau.
In 2002 Taku graduated to Formula One, aided by backing from Honda to secure a ride with Jordan. In Formula One, Sato proved to be fast but extremely erratic, his low point being a tremendous crash at Monaco which destroyed both his car and that of his teammate.
In 2003, Sato moved to British American Racing (BAR) as a test driver, but drove the final race of the season at Suzuka in place of Jacques Villeneuve. In 2004 Sato drove full-time for BAR, achieving the second-ever podium finish for a Japanese driver (after Aguri Suzuki in 1990) by finishing third at the United States Grand Prix. Sato finished the 2004 season a respectable eighth (with 34 points), greatly helping BAR to an impressive second place in the constructors championship.
Complete Formula One results
(Note: grands prix in bold denote points scoring races.)
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