SATO JOINS GANASSI AS JAPANESE DRIVER TO RACE OVALS ONLY
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Twotime Indianapolis 500 winner Takuma Sato will wind down his career this season by scaling back to ovals only in IndyCar as the Japanese driver moves to Chip Ganassi Racing.
Sato will share the No. 11 Honda with rookie Marcus Armstrong, who was hired to drive the IndyCar street and road course races for Ganassi. There are five oval races on this year’s IndyCar schedule and Tuesday’s announcement said only that Sato will “pilot the No. 11 Honda in oval competition.”
Sato would almost certainly be at the Indianapolis 500, which he won in 2017 driving for Michael Andretti and 2020 driving for Bobby Rahal. Sato is the only Japanese winner of “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing.”
Sato finished third at Indy in 2019 and crashed on the final lap racing Dario Franchitti for the 2012 victory. Franchitti won the race for Ganassi, an organization Sato is finally joining in a career that has spanned more than two decades, multiple teams and a start in Formula One.
“Focusing on the oval races is a new chapter for me but I’m thrilled to have the ability to race with team members and teammates that have won the championships and Indianapolis 500 in the past, which is a tremendous advantage,” Sato said.
Ganassi won last year’s Indianapolis 500 with Marcus Ericsson and the 2021 IndyCar championship with Alex Palou. Sato has six career victories over 13 seasons in IndyCar. His 215 career starts is sixth among active drivers and 22nd all-time. He spent last season driving for Dale Coyne Racing.
It’s a gross understatement to say last week was a hard one for the Decatur community. We lost two outstanding people when Paul Gunsett and Jim Hopkins passed away within a four-day period.
I knew both men well. I vividly remember the first time I met Paul. In
I will never forget how he went out of his way to congratulate me and wish us good luck the rest of the season. Even though I was an adult and a varsity coach, and he was a teenager, I felt that I had been honored by someone far higher on the status ladder. I was touched by his gesture.
Later, as I got to know 1987, my third year of him as a fellow teacher coaching cross country and coach, I realized at Bellmont, my team that my little encounter was having a pretty with him that day good season, having in 1987 was typical of just won the Bi-County Paul. Though he was meet for the first time. I a remarkably accomplished happened to cross paths athlete and with Paul after practice coach, with many state one day. I didn’t know championships on his him, though I knew of resume, he was unfailingly him. Everybody did. As thoughtful and a junior, he was already humble. If you were just a wrestling icon in a getting to know him, it wrestling-crazy town.