INDIANAPOLIS (Friday, May13, 2022) – Takuma Sato and his #51 Nurtec ODT Dale Coyne Racing came close to making it to the Fast 12 for the first time this season but fell just short and had to settle with a 13th place on the Saturday grid for Saturday’s GMR Grand Prix. Starting: 13th Group 1 / Round 1: 7th Best Lap: 1:09.8239
The two-time Indy 500 Champion went out in Group 1/Round 1 of qualifying and registered his fastest time on his 6th lap around the 2.439-mile, 14-turn road course.
His time was one thousandth of a second short from allowing him to move on to the next round.
His 13th place on the grid is his best starting position on a road/street course this season.
He has an overall best starting position of third at Texas Motor Speedway this year.
Sato is making his 12th start on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course this weekend.
In his 11 road course starts at IMS, he has a best finish of 11th (twice), and a best starting position of 11th (twice).
He also five top 10 finishes on the IMS road course.
Takuma Sato #51 Nurtec ODT Honda – Dale Coyne Racing with RWR “I’m quite excited to be back at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. We had high hopes going into qualifying. While it ended up being our best road course qualifying this season, we ended up missing on the second segment by just a thousandth of a second, so it’s a bit bitter. That said, we made good progress and hopefully in tomorrow’s warmup we can find some more speed and that we can have a strong race. But today was a little bit of mixed emotions.”