🇯🇵 Takuma Sato

Takuma Sato is an established professional racing part-time in IndyCar for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing. Over 26 seasons since 2000, he has started 322 races across Formula 1, Formula 3 Macau, IndyCar and the World Endurance Championship. His rating of 5,736 places him among established professionals; he competes in open-wheel racing at the national level in the United States, having spent seven years in Formula 1 from 2002 to 2008.[1]

The bulk of his career belongs to IndyCar, where he has started 225 times with 6 wins and 14 podiums. He won the Indianapolis 500 in 2017 and 2020, becoming the only Asian driver to win the event. His Formula 1 career at Super Aguri yielded one podium across 91 starts. Earlier, he won three of four Formula 3 Macau races in 2000 and 2001 for Carlin Motorsport; a brief 2012 endurance campaign in WEC produced one start in the LMP1 class. He finished 14th in the WEC championship standings that season.[2]

In IndyCar, where he races both ovals and road courses across 225 starts, Sato typically finishes behind FIA Platinum-graded champions Scott Dixon and Will Power, both multiple title winners. He has beaten Alex Palou, a four-time IndyCar champion, fifteen times across their head-to-heads, and once finished ahead of Nico Rosberg, the 2016 Formula 1 world champion, in their two meetings.