Formula One news

Season gets underway for Super Aguri team

Some would have probably not expected to see the Super Aguri in Melbourne. The team struggled the last couple of months with its financial problems, but at the start of this week the team announced it was sold to a group of investors and thus the team's future was secured. On track though the team knows there is still a lot of work to do.

Both Takuma Sato and Anthony Davidson faced a difficult start of the season. As the team was unable to join most of the test sessions this year it struggled with typical problems for a new car. The team's sporting director Graham Taylor explains: "It was a very difficult day; we tried to adopt a staged approach to the start of the year, attempting to tick the boxes that other teams have been able too during winter testing. Therefore in FP1, Anthony's car undertook a full grid procedure simulation whilst Takuma's car undertook a green flag simulation. We are experiencing some new car issues, as you would expect - a little overheating here and there, but otherwise the morning went to plan."

Anthony Davidson commented on his two free practice sessions on Friday: "It was a difficult Friday. We had planned a limited programme anyway, but then we had to cut short our run in the afternoon. I hope that we can get to grips with the car more tomorrow and move on from there."

Speaking about his first day on track in Melbourne Takuma Sato said: "I am pleased to have started our first day of the 2008 season. Of course we had some issues as our winter preparations were not completed and we had to evaluate many things on our very first day. But it was good to see the cars running and that the team is up to speed. There is a lot of work to do, naturally, but overall today was good."

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