IndyCar Driver Review: Takuma Sato - MotorSportsTalk

With the IndyCar season in the books and a limited amount of news to come since the season finale at Fontana, my MotorSportsTalk colleague Chris Estrada and are taking a look back at the 2013 season just past. Chris and I each ranked our top 10 drivers and some of the biggest stories; now we take a look back at the field driver-by-driver.

P17 was Long Beach winner, Takuma Sato…

2013 SEASON PREVIEW

Takuma Sato

Team: A.J. Foyt Enterprises
2012: 14th Place, Best Finish 2nd, Best Start 3rd
2013: 17th Place, 1 Win, 1 Pole, 2 Podiums, 2 Top-5, 4 Top-10, 187 Laps Led, 12.6 Avg. Start, 16.0 Avg. Finish

DiZinno says: The good, the bad and the ugly yet again for Sato in his fourth IndyCar season and third different team. The switch to Foyt brought out his best at the outset with the Long Beach win, the second at Brazil (even despite some questionable defending maneuvers), the near win at Milwaukee and the pole on the team’s home soil in Houston. He was probably Honda’s best shot the first half of the season before Ganassi and others got their act turned around. And then really from about Detroit on, it was “bad Taku” yet again, wreck after wreck after wreck that tested the team’s resolve, patience and budget. Sato finished only nine of 19 races this year and is likely, but not guaranteed, to return to Foyt’s squad next year.

Estrada says: Sato’s inaugural IndyCar win at Long Beach and runner-up at Sao Paulo had the A.J. Foyt Racing team atop the standings going into the Indy 500. And while he was unable to keep that lead, he still had a great first half. But after Milwaukee, things got real bad really fast for the ex-Formula One driver with nine DNFs in the final 10 races – a stretch that surely annoyed A.J. and his son/team manager, Larry. Even their pole-winning moment for Houston Race 1 went awry, with Sato going into the tires late before falling out a short time later with handling issues. A note: Sato’s competed in 68 races over the course of his IndyCar career, but has DNF’d in 29 of them (42.6 percent).

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An IndyCar executive said there is “absolutely” disappointment that its long-awaited video game recently was delayed beyond its target date, but the series remains optimistic about the new title.

“Well, I don’t know how quick it will be, but the whole situation is important to us,” Penske Entertainment president and CEO Mark Miles said during a news conference Monday morning to announce IndyCar’s NTT title sponsorship. “Motorsport Games has spent a lot of money, a lot of effort to create an IndyCar title. What we’ve seen of that effort, which is not completely obvious, is very reassuring.

“I think it’s going to be outstanding. That’s our shared objective, that when it is released, it’s just widely accepted. A great credit both to IndyCar racing, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, something that our fans love.”

In June 2021, IndyCar announced a new partnership with Motorsport Games to create and distribute an IndyCar video game for the PC and Xbox and PlayStation consoles in 2023.

But during an earnings call last week, Motorsport Games said the IndyCar game had been delayed to 2024 to ensure high quality.

Somewhat compounding the delay is that IndyCar’s license for iRacing expired after the end of the 2022 season because of its exclusive agreement with Motorsport Games.

That’s resulted in significant changes for IndyCar on iRacing, which had provided a high-profile way for the series to stay visible during its 2020 shutdown from the pandemic. (Players still can race an unbranded car but don’t race on current IndyCar tracks, nor can they stream).

That’s helped ratchet up the attention on having a video game outlet for IndyCar.

“I wish we had an IndyCar title 10 years ago,” said Miles, who has been working with the organization since 2013. “We’ve been close, but we’ve had these I think speed bumps.”

IndyCar is hopeful the Motorsports Game edition will be ready at the start of 2024. Miles hinted that beta versions could be unveiled to reporters ahead of the time “to begin to show the progress in a narrow way to make sure we’ve got it right, to test the progress so that we’re ready when they’re ready.”

It’s been nearly 18 years since the release of the most recent IndyCar video game for console or PC.

“(We) better get it right,” Miles said. “It’s something we’re very close to and continue to think about what it is to make sure we get it over the line in due course.”