By nGO
July 30 2006

Improvement in Pace as Sato was able to battle with the other cars, but bad reliability forced him to retire. Yamamoto's race was over before it began. Super Aguri will be looking to fix their SA06 issues so they can capitalize on their new found pace.

Yamamoto started from the pitlane but encountered driveshaft problems that ended his race before the first lap. Sato steered clear of trouble on the opening lap, although he did not make his usual rocket start, keeping clean allowed him to take position from cars who tripped over each other at the first few corners.

Sato was then defending against Speed, Ralf and Monteiro before settling infront of Monteiro, with the two battling for much of the GP. Then came disastrous news, there were gearbox problems with the car which forced Sato to retire ending his impressive run of the SA06. Hopefully with new parts, improved understanding of the SA06, the team can solve these issues and look forward to a stronger race next week in Hungary.

Bad end to a good weekend for Sato, ""The debut of the SA06 in Germany has been positive and the car performed very well in Qualifying yesterday. We were expecting a little bit more in terms of race pace today, so we are a little bit disappointed, but it is a big step up from the SA05 so this will come in time. It was exciting to be able to race with the Midland's and in the second stint I was still ahead of one of them. In the end I had a gearbox related oil issue so I had to retire from the race, but because this is a new car it is not really surprising that we encountered some kind of problem. Although it was obviously a disappointing race today, overall it was a good weekend for us, not easy, but definitely a good weekend."

Disappointment for Yamamoto's race debut, ""I am disappointed not to have raced here today as I only completed one lap. On the positive side, we have collected more data than we had for the SA06 today, so we shall study this before we arrive in Hungary. The SA06 is easier to drive than the SA05, so I hope that I can continue to adapt well and learn more about the car for the race in Hungary next week."

An encouraging start for the SA06 says Aguri, ""I am very sorry that Sakon was unable to compete in his first race with the team today. He showed encouraging progress in the SA06 all weekend so I hope that he will have a good Grand Prix in Hungary. Taku did a good job here today - he was competitive and showed that he was able to fight with the Midland's, but unfortunately he suffered with an oil leak. Even with our result today I am happy with the SA06's first outing because we were not been able to test the car before this race and I think that we have made an encouraging start."