Despite the relief at being able to make the opening rounds of the
Writing in his regular post-race debrief following the Bahrain Grand Prix, the Japanese driver admitted that the rescue deal with the Magma Group was still being finalised, and would not permit the team to join the rest of the grid at the Circuit de Catalunya in the build-up to the first European grand prix of the season, at the same venue, later this month.
"The final agreement is not yet finished with the Magma Group but, hopefully, it will happen very soon, and then we can press the button to start development," Sato wrote, "The next time I will drive will be in Friday practice for the Spanish Grand Prix."
Sato brought his car home in 17th place in an attrition-free Bahrain Grand Prix, confirming the SA08's fundamental reliability by heading another two-car finish and helping to provide further valuable data for the engineers after an off-season that saw the team sitting idle while its future was secured. The result was also welcomed after neither the Japanese veteran or team-mate Anthony Davidson were able to complete much running in Friday practice, and struggled to get a handle on the car as a consequence.
"We wanted to do a long run of ten timed laps but, because of our restrictions and the programme we wanted to complete, we did medium-long runs on soft and medium tyres," Sato revealed, "The problem we had was that the car's handling was dramatically changing from turn-in to mid-corner to exit. On turn-in, it was very unstable, in mid-corner [we had] massive understeer and, on exit, huge snap-oversteer. We really struggled to get the balance right.
"There was still a fundamental instability [on Saturday], but everything was better and the lap times were very consistent. Usually we do qualifying simulations in Saturday practice but, because of the missed time on Friday, we were trying to get a race set-up. Only at the end of the session [did] we try a qualifying simulation."
crash.net
Formula One
world championship, it would appear that Super Aguri F1's future is not entirely settled, after lead driver Takuma Sato revealed that the team would not attend the next group test in Spain.Writing in his regular post-race debrief following the Bahrain Grand Prix, the Japanese driver admitted that the rescue deal with the Magma Group was still being finalised, and would not permit the team to join the rest of the grid at the Circuit de Catalunya in the build-up to the first European grand prix of the season, at the same venue, later this month.
"The final agreement is not yet finished with the Magma Group but, hopefully, it will happen very soon, and then we can press the button to start development," Sato wrote, "The next time I will drive will be in Friday practice for the Spanish Grand Prix."
Sato brought his car home in 17th place in an attrition-free Bahrain Grand Prix, confirming the SA08's fundamental reliability by heading another two-car finish and helping to provide further valuable data for the engineers after an off-season that saw the team sitting idle while its future was secured. The result was also welcomed after neither the Japanese veteran or team-mate Anthony Davidson were able to complete much running in Friday practice, and struggled to get a handle on the car as a consequence.
"We wanted to do a long run of ten timed laps but, because of our restrictions and the programme we wanted to complete, we did medium-long runs on soft and medium tyres," Sato revealed, "The problem we had was that the car's handling was dramatically changing from turn-in to mid-corner to exit. On turn-in, it was very unstable, in mid-corner [we had] massive understeer and, on exit, huge snap-oversteer. We really struggled to get the balance right.
"There was still a fundamental instability [on Saturday], but everything was better and the lap times were very consistent. Usually we do qualifying simulations in Saturday practice but, because of the missed time on Friday, we were trying to get a race set-up. Only at the end of the session [did] we try a qualifying simulation."
crash.net