22/07/2007
NEWS STORY
The weather played the leading role in today's 2007 European Grand Prix. As soon as the Red Lights went off to start the race the rain came pounding down. Following a number of immediate retirements, Super Aguri drivers Anthony Davidson and Takuma Sato drove solid laps to keep their cars safely on the waterlogged track. The severity of the rain forced a Red Flag situation and the race was restarted by the Safety Car 35 minutes after it had originally begun. Unfortunately a hydraulic problem forced the team to retire Takuma on lap 19, however Anthony went on to finish the demanding race, just as a further shower of rain came down, in 12th position.
Takuma Sato: It was great fun at the start of the race having to run in the rain on the dry tyre. I made up a lot of positions and was P10 by the end of Lap 1. But then the rain was too strong to keep on the dry tyre and I came back to the pit on the next lap, before the Red Flag. At the re-start we looked as though we had reasonable race pace, but unfortunately I had a hydraulic failure and had to retire from the race, which is a big shame.
Anthony Davidson: It was a tough day with the weather causing havoc for all of the teams out there. It was difficult to know what tyre to be on at what time, but in the dry running our car seemed to have the pace over the Honda and I had a nice fight with Rubens for P12/ P11 at the time. That was good fun and the best part of the race for me and I just had to wait to see how it would unfold from there for the last stint. We then got caught out in the rain at the end and probably made the wrong tyre choice at the time, and that was key to the race really. It was a good sign that we had the speed, but overall it was a disappointing day as we could not capitalise on the mixed fortunes of the other runners.
Aguri Suzuki, Team Principal: It was a difficult race because the weather was very unstable at the beginning. Our two cars were running with good performance and pace, but in the end we had to ask Takuma to retire with a hydraulic problem. Anthony continued to run in uncertain conditions which made the decision of tyre choice for the rest of the race a difficult one. However, Anthony and the team did a very good job today and we shall learn from our experience here at the Nurburgring.
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