(Reuters) – Two-time Indianapolis 500 Champion Takuma Sato stated on Monday that switching to a new team is rarely simple however he’s excited for the problem that awaits as he prepares for his debut with Dale Coyne Racing subsequent month.
Sato, the one Japanese driver to win the Indianapolis 500, signed with Dale Coyne Racing for the 2022 IndyAutomobile Series season and the 44-12 months-previous stated he can not assist however really feel younger again as he closes in on his first begin with the team.
“Just like a kid have a new Christmas current,” Sato stated throughout a information convention. “It’s simply pleasure as properly a little bit nervous in what is going on on. We simply do not know. Moving to the new team is not essentially all the time simple factor.
“The flipside, it is all the time dramatically thrilling as a result of the long run we are able to make it collectively. That hope and pleasure is identical degree between team and myself. We each very, very, yeah, trying ahead to the primary race.”
Sato, who has six wins and 10 poles in 199 profession IndyAutomobile races courting again to his rookie season in 2010, spent the previous 4 years with Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing.
He now replaces Romain Grosjean, who’s now with Andretti Autosport, and can make his Dale Coyne Racing debut on the Feb. 27 Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg.
Sato, who hopes to win a third Indy 500 with three totally different groups after victories with Andretti Autosport in 2017 and Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing in 2020, stated he and team proprietor Coyne ought to complement one another properly.
“It’s pure bonding we convey on the desk with each side of the expertise,” stated Sato. “Dale, the automobile is extraordinarily aggressive in phrases of highway velocity.
“What I’ve skilled up to now few years, specifically with the winnings on the five hundred, that is one thing that I can help to the Dale. We will see if that magical, chemical response begins.”
(Reporting by Frank Pingue in Toronto, modifying by Pritha Sarkar)
