Sato Sees Race End Early in Nashville Due to Contact

dalecoynepr on August 7, 2022

Nashville, TN (Sunday, August 7, 2022) – Takuma Sato (#51 Nurtec ODT- Dale Coyne Racing with RWR saw his race come to an early end after he was hit by another competitor not quite halfway through the Big Machine Music City Grand Prix.

Started: 20th
Finished: 21st

  • Sato started his second career race in Nashville from the 20th position.
  • He was running 18th by Lap 10 and had made his way up to 13th by the time he entered pit lane for his first stop on Lap 22.
  • The #51 Nurtec ODT driver was running a good pace and making his way up the field when he attempted a pass on the #29 car of Devlin DeFrancesco.
  • Sato made sure that the rookie driver could see him heading into the Turn 10 corner but the two still made contact and both ended up in the wall.
  • The damage to Sato’s car was too severe to continue and he ended up 21st.
  • In 14 races this season, Sato has a best finish of seventh (IMS road course) and he has a best starting position of second on the streets of Detroit this year.


Career facts:

  • Has six INDYCAR SERIES wins (2013 – Long Beach; 2017 – Indy 500; 2018 – Portland; 2019 – Barber, Gateway: 2020 – Indy 500)
  • 10 poles (2011 – Iowa, Edmonton; 2013 – Houston Race 1; 2014 – St. Pete, Detroit Race 2; 2017 – Detroit Race 2, Pocono; 2019 – Barber, Texas; 2020 St. Louis Race 2)

Takuma Sato #51 Nurtec ODT Honda – Dale Coyne Racing with RWR
“Our race was very disappointing today. We were making our way up running P15 and making our way to the top 10 but we didn’t quite get there. What happened was that DeFrancesco went wide into Turn 10 and we both hit the wall, normally you can run two-wide there. He said I had turned into him, but I didn’t. I made sure that he saw me, and he did. He explained that someone had hit him from behind, but looking at the footage of on-board cameras, that wasn’t the case. Basically, he didn’t turn, and he crashed into me. What’s mostly disappointing, it’s not just that we didn’t finish the race, we should have good quality, hard racing, but it wasn’t that. As a team, David (Malukas) had a great run, but he also had an unfortunate situation. Not the day we wanted but we’ll keep the momentum going, and we should have a strong race in St. Louis in a couple of weeks.”

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