Jimmy Jazz continues his odyssey from casual F1 fan to full on obsession:

Taku, as we all affectionately know and call him, was initially a name, which I came across on top timesheets and scorecards in the 2000 British F3 championship when I joined In Pit Lane in that rainy September in year 2000.  I became interested in his performances when I spotted him more frequently than not in F3 related articles and the praises that everyone was giving him.  When I saw some footage of his driving in the 2000 Macau F3 GP (unfortunately eventually crashing out) and over the course of 2001, when Ant was his teammate and the pair dominated the British F3 championship, my mind was set.  I enjoyed keeping myself up to date with his performances and especially enjoyed that win at the Macau F3GP in 2001. I was therefore overjoyed when Eddie Jordan hired Taku, and Ant became BAR Honda’s test driver in 2002.  

The first time I met Taku in person was Melbourne 2002 at the Sheraton (now Langham) Hotel where he was staying with the rest of the Jordan crew.  He was very polite and happy to meet me.  I felt very positive vibes when I talked to him, and that’s even after his shunt in qualifying and just scraping through the 107% barrier to qualify for the race.  If it was a different driver, they would have given up and spat the dummy but not our Taku.  

Oh my God! There's more than one of them!!!

The highlight of 2002 of course was his performance which wowed everybody and begun the legend at Suzuka.  I was watching the race at the Sherlock Holmes, a Melbourne pub frequented by dozens of eager F1 fans every Grand Prix. With all our guys we were on a real high when he qualified best of the rest behind the big 3 teams, and crossed the finished the line in 5th after a faultless performance.  I lost my voice from screaming so hard and drank even harder… until I discovered my car was locked in a parking lot because I was celebrating too busy celebrating and had missed the closing time! I ended up having to fork out $50 to retrieve my car. I actually posted this on the original Takuma Sato forum (yellow grey and black theme… such a long time ago!) and sent Matthew this on a message and got a laugh out of both him and Taku. 

2003 saw Taku as the test driver for BAR but he still traveled to Melbourne as the official reserve, and the best part of it all, he remembered me!! I mentioned to him that he owed me a photo last year as I asked whether if we can have a photo together at Melbourne 2002 but we never did manage to do it.  Thankfully we did have a photo together a year later, and I got a few goodies signed by him.  

2003 Suzuka of course was the highlight of the year.  Villeneuve spat the dummy and in comes Taku and slots straight into points and pushed Michael Schumacher off the road! When he did that Star TV went to an ad break and left off when they braked together side by side into Casio chicane after 130R.  We craned our heads to the screen showing the French TF1 coverage of the same and they cut to a vision of the leaders.  I screamed so loud as well as everybody else (even the Villeneuve fans who doubted Taku’s ability before the race) as the next vision showed Michael going into the pits with a broken front wing… and the replays came on when Taku chopped across Michael’s front wing.  That was ACE… Everybody high 5ed me (except the Ferrari fans) and I kept on yelling out “He’s my man… yeah baby!!” when they replayed Taku cutting Michael off…

To  be continued…..