August 2012

“We were going through our test program for the road course package that we weren’t very satisfied with and were making progress," said Sato. "It was a good test and we were getting more of an understanding for these cars with the road course package and tires. It was a good session in the morning and then we continued testing in the afternoon, trying to find a little bit more speed but then by the end something happened under braking and I lost control and the car was damaged so we stopped earlier which is a shame."

“It was a tough race," said Sato. "It was a big weekend for us and everyone really worked hard but unfortunately we didn’t have the pace that we needed. We started with the balance in the stint. It looks like such a narrow window for the sweet spot. It was a little better in the middle stint but we lost the grip in the end. We overtook a couple of people but also lost some places. In the end we got a couple of positions which was good but it was not enough. I look forward to the Sonoma test so we can get a better understanding of the road course configuration.”

“I’m disappointed in the qualifying result especially since I like the circuit and had a good record the past two years here," said Sato.  "It’s a shame that we didn’t have good speed to go to the next stage of qualifying. The field is very competitive as usual in Mid-Ohio. We made good progress so we made a big improvement from the practice session. Our lap time delta is really ramping up but it wasn’t enough to progress to the next stage. It was only a couple of tenths but we needed a little bit more. We will take the experience from qualifying and the practice sessions and continue to work on it tomorrow.”

“We continued our work list from last week’s test," said Sato. "So many things were left due to the weather. We came here with some changes and over the course of the practice we tried a number of things. The track was a bit different. Initially it was quite greasy, low grip which is typical Mid-Ohio. And it was quite rapidly rubbered down so after the first half of the season the track was getting pretty good. We couldn’t make the most of our potential. We tried different things but I was struggling with the balance a bit. We will go through the data and continue to work on that.”