"This is so deeply sad," said Takuma Sato of the fatal accident to Dan Wheldon that caused the abandonment of the final round of the IZOD IndyCar Series at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. "I feel particularly for Dan's wife, his two young children, his parents and all his family."

"I knew the accident was something serious, and knew that Dan had been carried from the car, but I didn't know what the situation was. It was a massive accident - 15 cars, with debris all over the place and cars on fire. It was really bad. I'm devastated."

This had looked potentially like a good weekend for the KV Racing Technology-Lotus team, with Sato looking to improve on 13th in the points Championship. Although Taku qualified 16th out of the 34-car field, team-mate Tony Kanaan was on pole position.
"Tony had been strong all weekend since first practice," said Sato. "We tried to find the same scenario but couldn't get the speed. We had rebuilt the car - it had been completely stripped since the last race in Kentucky. We needed to find what was wrong there, and knew it wasn't a simple answer. The team rebuilt all the whole friction parts and made an Indy 500 level of commitment.

"Las Vegas is a very fast track. It has a very high banking, just slightly less than Texas, but the corner radius is much bigger, like Chicago, so it's very easy for the car and you don't need to find grip. Instead it's a very different approach, taking off every single part you can within the aero regulations. Even if you give away some mechanical grip, that doesn't matter as long as you reduce drag."

Sato was hoping for a strong race, even if he was slightly apprehensive about 200 laps on the 1.5-mile oval. "We knew it would be two or three-wide for much of the distance - very exciting," he said. "But you need a lot of concentration and respect.

"Our car was pretty strong in traffic, so I didn't worry too much about my grid position because I knew the race would be fought out in one pack.

"The problem is, everybody wants to do well in the last race. Because of the pack racing, the big teams only have a tiny advantage and it's a good chance for the smallest teams to get good results. That's why people were running so tight and aggressively.

"There's nothing wrong with the track at Las Vegas; it's just a matter of how you handle it. You need to respect it and give space to each other. Because we had been so successful with having exciting races recently, people were running much more aggressively and unnecessarily close together."

Takuma was running just outside the top 10 when the accident broke out a couple of cars behind him. "It was like hell, really bad," he said. "After that the question was whether we should race. We looked at all the circumstances and decided to do our tribute parade. Finishing with a red flag is not a situation that everyone wanted, but finishing with a three-wide parade, like the Indy 500 grid, was a nice way to think about Dan and for the fans."

The day ended a turbulent season for Sato. His Japanese homeland was rocked by natural disaster and tragedy back in the spring, then his father succumbed to illness, and now this. But amid the sadness, he took pole positions at Iowa Speedway and Edmonton, and also led these two races as well as Sao Paulo and New Hampshire. This has been a very promising campaign in his second IndyCar season.

"I can think of no words for Dan's accident," he concluded. "I'm just thinking about his family. He was a great competitor and real gentleman. All his friends in motorsport will miss him deeply." IndyCar have launched a memorial website in honor of Dan at www.danwheldonmemorial.com.

"But I also have to say a big thank you to all my sponsors, including Lotus, Honda, Panasonic and Interush, plus all of my very enthusiastic fans and of course whole KV Racing Technology Lotus team. This year so many things have happened, but in terms of the racing there have been many very exciting moments and we showed huge potential."

Now Taku will head back to his family and begin working on planning his 2012 campaign. "I just need to get sorted for next year," he said. "We'll let you, the fans, know as soon as there is anything to announce! But in the meantime, I will be spending some more time in Japan over the close season working on building up the With you Japan project that we started back in March and which is already benefitting children affected by the tsunami disaster. People can follow our progress with this project as usual on www.WithYouJapan.org and www.facebook.com/WithYouJapanCharity. I want to finish with a sincere thanks to everyone who has supported this charity over the year."

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