By Phil Huff (22/09/2003)
September 22 2003

Lucky Strike BAR Honda's third driver, Takuma Sato, pulled some crowd-pleasing stunts in a BAR Honda 005 Formula One car at this weekend's second annual Mount Stuart Motorsport Classic, held on the Scottish Isle of Bute. Brackley-based BAR was one of two F1 teams participating in the event, joined by BMW-Williams, who had Olivier Beretta at the wheel of its car. They joined drivers from various motorsport disciplines, including rally star Alister McRae, and drivers from the MINI Cooper Challenge.

An F1 car has not been driven in Scotland for over 25 years, and the event pulled in crowds from the Scottish Mainland, who seized the opportunity to see the machines in action on their home soil.

The first day of the event dawned bright and sunny and Takuma carried out a ten-lap demonstration run in front of the eager spectators. He ran again today at midday, but had to stop when he suffered a broken driveshaft after three laps. Not wishing to disappoint, however, the team repaired the car ready for Takuma to return to the circuit at 5pm, the final run of the two-day event. Weather conditions deteriorated today, but even though the rain poured and the grounds of the estate were damp, the fans still arrived in droves.

After completing his final lap, Takuma said "It's been a really great weekend. The scenery around here is fantastic and yesterday we had beautiful weather and did some great demonstrations. Even though it's been raining today, the crowds were still cheering. We took the traction control off the car, which meant we could really give a good performance – we did lots of spinning and sideways driving. The circuit is quite short with only a few corners, but we were able to do ten laps so the fans saw the car in action quite a lot. Most of the people here have never seen an F1 car up close, and I could see them smiling from the cockpit!