Australian GP: Super Aguri race notes

Super Aguri F1 Team achieved a two-car finish at the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne today, however the race was not without incident for the team. Takuma Sato and new team mate Anthony Davidson finished in 12th and 16th positions respectively, however both drivers experienced different problems on their way to the starting grid.

Takuma made a good race start, holding position, however Anthony's car failed to get away cleanly which cost him several places down the grid. During an incident with Albers[*], Anthony was hit on the right-hand side which launched the car into the air and winded him as it hit the ground. Despite suffering with back pain and carrying a reasonable amount of bodywork damage for the entire race, Anthony took the chequered flag for the first time in his F1 career.

Takuma Sato:

"Firstly, well done to everybody in the team. It is a positive start to the season, with two reliable cars finishing the race. I had quite an exciting start and first lap amongst the pack, which I enjoyed. But with the differing track conditions, I was struggling a bit with the balance of the car which meant that we could not make the most of it."

"But I take this as a positive learning experience and something that we shall have to work on from here. During my second stop we lost some time and that affected our finishing position. That was unfortunate, but I think we've shown good performance and made a very solid start, so I am looking forward to having another good race in Malaysia."

Anthony Davidson:

"The car went into anti-stall at the start, which is such a shame as I didn't go anywhere, so obviously I was then in last place as we went into turn one. I collected myself and thought that maybe I'd get some early positions back. I went round the outside of one of the Spyker's and they hit me quite heavily, even though I thought I'd given them enough room."

"The car got pitched into the air and landed very heavily and I hurt my upper back. The jolt also winded me a lot making talking on the radio difficult. I think that we've got to work on our pace for the next race, so we need to do some more long runs and understand what happens to the balance during the test in Sepang."

"My car suffered a lot of damage, the whole right side of the bodywork was gone, the floor's broken, and I must have lost a major amount of downforce and that obviously slows you down a lot. It was a fight, but I got to the end of the race and saw my first Grand Prix chequered flag."

Aguri Suzuki, Team Principal:

"I want to say thank you very much to everybody because this winter has been extremely busy for the team with testing and all of our staff, mechanics and the drivers have done a good job. We were very good in Qualifying yesterday, but during the race we were a little unlucky."

"Anthony did not start well because of the anti-stall and Taku, who did a good job in the race, was unlucky in his pitstops. His first stop was slow and there was traffic in the pitlane during his second stop which meant that he could not leave the box in good time. On the positive side, our two cars finished the race today and so I think that it is a good start to the season."

Takuma Sato
Chassis: SA07-04
Position: 12th
No. of Laps: 57
Fastest Lap Time: 1:28.487

Anthony Davidson
Chassis: SA07-03
Position: 16th
No. of Laps: 56
Fastest Lap Time: 1:28.489

-credit: super aguri

[*]Editor's note: it was actually Adrian Sutil