In RACER Magazine: 'No attack, no chance'

The final few laps of the Indianapolis 500; running hard, up at the front. Takuma Sato had been in this position dozens of times before. Maybe even hundreds.

There was that one occasion that everybody saw, that everybody remembers. That was in 2012, when he rode a Dario Franchitti tow past the white flag, moved to the inside of the Scot on the entry to Turn 1, then spun up into the outside wall. But since then, he's been in the same position over and over again in his imagination, analyzing, learning, driving a figmental simulator. If he was ever lucky enough to find himself in the same situation again in the real world, he was going to make sure he was prepared.

And then came May 28, 2017. Final few laps of the 101st Indianapolis 500. Sato running hard, up at the front.

"Usually, second chances don't happen," he tells RACER. "But this was the exact situation I'd dreamed about."

Of course on this occasion, the sour milk-stink in the firesuit, the hundreds of text messages on his phone, and the couple of hours of patchy sleep broken by a 6:30am photo shoot at the Speedway on the morning after the race point to a vastly different outcome...

Sato wrested the lead from Helio Castroneves for the final time with five laps to go – more on that later – and looked relatively untroubled as he ticked off the final 12.5 miles that stood between him and the distinction of becoming the first Asian driver to grace the Borg-Warner Trophy. It was a surprise to most, considering that his name had rarely figured in pre-race conversations, although as always, hindsight illuminates the signs that were there for those who cared to look: Sato had a track record of being fast at the Speedway, he'd been quick all through the Month of May, and the Andretti cars were rocketships.

But the secret ingredient? That gutting last-lap visit to the SAFER Barriers on the same weekend five years earlier.

“The 2012 race was a great experience and a great part of my life,” he says. “To actually challenge to win the Indy 500… that was a significant experience that you can’t really understand until you are there.

“You can visualize overtaking some guy into Turn 1, but not specifically Dario, not specifically the last lap of the Indy 500. That’s a completely different scenario, and mentally, physically, you have to be there to be prepared.

“For five years, I constantly had that experience from 2012 in the back of my head. You know how you’re going to react if it happens again. You know it. Everything is related, and I’m really pleased that the 2012 experience finally paid off the way I’d always dreamed about it.”

Repeated mental rehearsals for a specific racing situation that might never arise again don’t tally readily against Sato’s “No attack, no chance” reputation. Brains, or banzai? The answer is: both. Engineer Garrett Mothershead, who worked with Sato at KV Racing and was reunited with him at Andretti this year, says that Sato’s healthy appetite for risk is real, but it’s offset by a cerebral side that is sometimes overlooked.

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