Newton, Iowa – (Sunday, July 24, 2022) – Dale Coyne Racing with RWR’s Takuma Sato scored his best oval finish of the season on Sunday in Race 2 of the Iowa Speedway doubleheader with a 10th place finish.
- Starting from fourth, Sato ran in the top 4 for his entire first stint and led a couple of laps before making his first trip down pit lane on Lap 68.
- Unfortunately for Sato, he ended up falling to 17th following his stop but made his way back to 12th before taking advantage of a full course caution to make his second stop on Lap 129.
- Sato then led another three laps before making what the team hoped would be his final stop on Lap 199.
- The team opted for a fuel saving strategy but decided to pit with the rest of the field during a caution on Lap 245 so they could run hard to the end of the 300-lap race with the rest of the field.
- Sato went on to battle with his teammate David Malukas, exchanging their 9th and 10th places a few times, before taking the checkered flag in 10th place.
- In 12 races this season, Sato has a best finish of seventh at the GMR Grand Prix and a best start of second in Detroit.
Takuma Sato #51 Nurtec ODT Honda – Dale Coyne Racing with RWR
“We started from the second row for the second race of the weekend here in Iowa, so that was much better. The first part of the race was pretty much ‘follow the leader’ and we left the pack behind, which was good as I ran in the top five that whole time. Then we tried to stretch the fuel window because it’s a 300-lap race and that was our plan, and we were the last to pit with about 100 laps to go. We tried to save fuel to make it until the end because we were confident the rest of the field had to stop again for fuel. In the end the yellow came out and our strategy didn’t work out. Finishing 10th after starting 4th isn’t great but it’s great for the team to have both cars finish in the top 10.”
dalecoyneracing.com 