16/09/2007
NEWS STORY
It was a hard fought Grand Prix for the Super Aguri team in Belgium today. With Anthony reporting a problem with his SA07 on the way to the grid, the team opted to start his race from the pitlane. Takuma made a good start and battled his way for most of his 43-lap race. Starting from 19th and 21st positions today, Takuma and Anthony took the chequered flag at the end of the last European race of the 2007 season in 15th and 16th places respectively.
Takuma Sato: It was a good race, under the difficult circumstances. I made up a few places at the start, but on the Kemmel straight, when I was side by side with a Toro Rosso, I was pushed off and so had to run on the ‘green' and lost a lot of momentum. I then had to keep battling to make up my lost positions, but I had fun doing it and had some exciting moments. That shows how great the Spa circuit is for Formula One; that there are overtaking opportunities and that it's a challenging circuit. It's just a shame that we did not have the speed today, and that was frustrating. However, all-in-all I think that we have a taken a few positive notes here before we head off to the Japanese Grand Prix.
Anthony Davidson: It was a pretty uneventful race for me. I had to start from the pitlane after feeling a problem on the front end of the car on the out lap, so that was a shame. But I caught up with the back of the pack and really fought hard on my one-stop strategy to make the most of it, and I think we did. I was stuck on the prime tyre for longer than I wanted and just as the options came into the working window. From then on I just had to bring the car home. It was good to see our strategy pay off and I think that we've learnt a lot from this weekend and will move forward for the last three races.
Graham Taylor, Sporting Director: Given the Saturday that we had, today was going to be all about working hard to produce a standard race and both drivers stuck to their task. Anthony reported an ill-handling car on the way to the grid, so we opted to change the set-up and start from the pitlane. We put both drivers on what we believe were the best strategies today and I think that we got the best out of the cars that we could. The team did a great job in the pitstops and once again our reliability was good. Although we did not have a super competitive car, the racer in Takuma still showed through.
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