{"id":85941,"date":"2025-08-21T21:49:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-21T21:49:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/85941\/"},"modified":"2025-08-21T21:49:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-21T21:49:09","slug":"he-is-the-f1-driver-who-felt-a-meteor-had-hit-him-after-crashing-at-the-austrian-grand-prix","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/85941\/","title":{"rendered":"He is the F1 driver who felt a ‘meteor’ had hit him after crashing at the Austrian Grand Prix"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

There was once a time when catastrophic mechanical failures and significant shunts made Formula 1 a chaotic spectacle.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no hiding that thanks to the FIA\u2019s<\/a> efforts over the last few decades, safety has come a long way, with both drivers and spectators being in a far better position than they once were.<\/p>\n

Multiple current Formula 1<\/a> drivers are fortunate that leaps in standards have saved lives through the years. <\/p>\n

This year\u2019s drivers\u2019 championship<\/a> hasn\u2019t seen any significant crashes, and reliability seems stronger than ever. Old-fashioned spectacular engine failures are a thing of the past.<\/p>\n

Mercedes were dealing with a \u2018serious reliability issue\u2019<\/a> which threatened to thwart their season earlier in 2025, but customer team McLaren seemed unaffected by their woes, with two titles on the line.<\/p>\n

However, McLaren did make one \u2018extreme\u2019 change<\/a> to their car that was feared could cause reliability issues. Fortunately, it doesn\u2019t appear to have had any negative effect.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: How much it will cost to buy 2002 Michael Schumacher F1 car at auction<\/a><\/p>\n

\"ThePhoto by Mark Thompson\/Getty ImagesTakuma Sato felt a \u2018meteor\u2019 had hit him after crashing at the 2002 Austrian Grand Prix<\/p>\n

One great example of how improvements to safety have helped to reduce the dangers of the sport came at the 2002 Austrian Grand Prix<\/a>.<\/p>\n

On lap 27 after a safety car restart, Sauber\u2019s Nick Heidfeld hit the brakes, but his car spun round at high speed. He had misjudged how much warm-up a new set of anchors had required at low speed.<\/p>\n

He speared into the side of Jordan\u2019s Takuma Sato, who, after some time, was safely extracted from his car. Speaking to the Red Bull<\/a> website, he once revealed his reaction to the incident.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought a meteor had hit me,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was an unbelievably big impact and it was strange because I had no idea who\u2019d crashed into me. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was like something had hit me out of nowhere. I felt a lot of pain and couldn\u2019t move my legs because they were wedged between bits of carbon fibre from my car and bits of the Sauber.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his debut season at the time, Sato finished in the points once at his season-closing home race. He didn\u2019t have a race seat for 2003, but was BAR\u2019s test driver, competing once more in the last race at Japan and scoring points again.<\/p>\n

In 2004, they rewarded him with a full-time drive, and he would score a maiden podium at Indianapolis \u2013 a place that would become very familiar to him in the future, with two Indy 500 wins in 2017 and 2020.<\/p>\n

He scored one point for BAR in 2005 and wound up at Super Aguri in 2006. Between then and his last race in 2008, he would score points just two more times.<\/p>\n

Takuma Sato expects Austrian Grand Prix crash would have had a \u2018different outcome\u2019 five years before<\/p>\n

The improvement in safety standards was something that Sato did not take for granted. He also mentioned how he thinks that if the crash had happened a few years before, he might have been in trouble.<\/p>\n

\u201cHad the crash happened five years earlier, I think there might have been a different outcome,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m sure my legs would have been more damaged because the safety of the cars was improving very rapidly.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2010, he settled in IndyCar, where he still races on a part-time basis today. His best championship finish was a 7th overall in 2020.<\/p>\n

He tested with Red Bull for the 2009 Toro Rosso seat in 2008, but Sebastien Bourdais, a future rival of his in IndyCar, would eventually receive the gig, and Sato would refuse a role as Red Bull test driver.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There was once a time when catastrophic mechanical failures and significant shunts made Formula 1 a chaotic spectacle.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":85942,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,64271,817,813,816,85,64272],"class_list":["post-85941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-austrian-grand-prix","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports","tag-takuma-sato"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85941"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85941\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/85942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}