The weather played the leading role in the European Grand Prix and as soon as the red lights went off to start the race a heavy rain storm engulfed the Nurburgring.
Following a number of retirements, the severity of the rain forced the grand prix to be red-flagged.
Takuma Sato survived the initial chaos in his Super Aguri-Honda SA07 but was later forced out - after the event was re-started - and retired on lap 19 due to a hydraulic problem.

　 “ It was great fun at the start of the race having to run in the rain on the dry tyre. I made up a lot of positions and was P10 by the end of Lap 1. But then the rain was too strong to keep on the dry tyre and I came back to the pit on the next lap, before the Red Flag. At the re-start we looked as though we had reasonable race pace, but unfortunately I had a hydraulic failure and had to retire from the race, which is a big shame. ”

　 Takuma Sato made it through to the second session during qualifying on Saturday for the European Grand Prix at the Nurburgring. He will line-up in 16th place - his best times, a 1m 32.678s in Q1 and a 1m 32.838s in Q2.

　 “ It was a good practice session. We made a few changes in the morning to try to improve and we made progress. I was happy with the car in Q1 and we looked very good. At least we got into Q2 as it has been a few races since we did that, but it was unfortunate that on my last quick lap there was a yellow flag at the chicane and I had to abort. It was unlucky that I could not improve because of that, but the car showed good performance today so hopefully we can have a strong race tomorrow. ”

　 Takuma Sato made an encouraging start to the European Grand Prix weekend and completed his planned test programme, despite heavy rain and strong winds which made track conditions at the Nurburging difficult.

　 “ Because we knew that it was going to rain in the afternoon we had a busy morning session, which is unusual as the track is always green in the morning. The car performed reasonably well and I was happy enough with the balance to go into the normal Friday tyre comparison runs. We were lucky in the afternoon that the circuit dried very quickly after the lunchtime rain and we were able to complete another dry session, collecting interesting data. Hopefully we can improve tomorrow again as today we ran reasonably well. ”