Feature: Taku's story.

Takuma Sato's story is a fascinating one: from a childhood racing fan to a two-wheel pedal powered racing star-in-the-making and onto Formula One, the pinnacle of world motorsport competition.

Takuma's love affair with motorsport actually began back in 1987 when he visited Suzuka with his father to watch that year's Japanese Grand Prix - the first time the circuit had ever held the race. He went along to cheer for Saturo Nakajima, the pioneering Japanese driver, but saw Gerhard Berger's Ferrari win the day. However, he left Suzuka captivated by another - Ayrton Senna.

"I was a ten year-old boy and I knew nothing about F1. I cheered for Nakajima in his yellow Lotus-Honda, because he was Japanese and the only name I had heard of. However, his team-mate that day was Ayrton Senna and in the race I was watching him. He had qualified seventh, but in the race he just kept pushing on and on, and in the end he finished in second place. Obviously I had no idea about F1 at that age, but I could feel there was something special about Senna."

Leap forward to six years ago. Takuma was a teenage bicycle racer in Japan, still dreaming that his two-wheeled chain-driven mount was a powerful racing car. In fact the affable Japanese could well have chosen to stick with two wheels - Taku started his racing career by winning the All Japan High School Race in 1994 and the All Japan University Race in 1996.

"When I was 17, I started track racing and began to take it very seriously. I won quite a few races on the track and on the road. Ironically, one of my first road races was at the Suzuka circuit. I still do as much as I can but I don't get as much time to cycle as I'd like now I am an F1 driver."

Indeed he is. But Sato, already regarded by many as the most talented driver ever to emerge from Japan, didn't go motor racing until the relatively late age of 19 after swapping his bicycles and most of his savings for a go-kart. After showing masses of potential, he was selected for Honda's Suzuka racing school scholarship. He won the prize, a fully paid drive in the 1998 All-Japan Formula Three Championship, but passed it up in order to pursue his desire of reaching Formula One. And to do that he had to go to Europe.

Arriving in mid '98, he contested a handful of Formula Vauxhall Junior races, mainly with the small Diamond Racing team, then at the end of the year graduated with Diamond to Formula Opel. In 1999, his first full year of car racing, he took sixth place in the hotly contested EFDA Formula Opel Euroseries, and also competed in the last few rounds of the British F3 Championship in Class B and won the Macau Grand Prix support race for AF2000 cars with the Meritus Team.

Taku went on to join Carlin Motorsport for 2000 to compete in the F3 'A' class, winning a total of five races and taking third place in the prestigious British Championship. By now Grand Prix teams were beginning to sit up and take notice, and, in December, he got his first F1 tests with Jordan and British American Racing. BAR duly signed him as a test driver for 2001, and he also became contracted to Honda for the first time.

As well as his new testing responsibilities for BAR in 2001, Taku remained in F3 to hone his skills and improve his racecraft, He dominated the championship and broke the record for the number of wins in the British F3 Championship with 12 out of 13 possible victories, as well as first place in the Marlboro Masters of F3 at Zandvoort and the International race supporting the British Grand Prix. He also impressed with his test outings for BAR, which took place mainly at Silverstone and Mugello. Sato ended his Formula 3 career on a high when he won the Macau Grand Prix in November 2001, taking victory in both the preliminary qualifying event and the main race and providing further evidence of his outstanding talent. This talent earned him his race seat in Formula One with Jordan Grand Prix in 2002.

It was a dramatic first year in the world's premier motorsport category. Paired with the experienced Italian Giancarlo Fisichella, Taku's season was one of ups and downs; his horror crash with Nick Heidfeld in Austria was an undeniable low point, but the season ended on a massive high when Sato scored his first F1 points in a sensational race at Suzuka, coming home in fifth place.

"Obviously coming 5th in 2002 was a very special moment for me. To get my best result of my first season in front of the huge crowd was really great, but the reaction of the Japanese people after I got out of the car was unbelievable. They went crazy. It was a very special day for me."

In 2003, Taku 'came home' to BAR as the team's third driver, and his contribution was central to the development of the Honda-powered BAR Honda 005 and 006 race cars. At the final race of the year in Suzuka, he substituted at short notice for Jacques Villeneuve and scored two points with a fantastic drive to 6th place that included one of the season's racing highlights; a monumental - and successful - battle with World Champion, Michael Schumacher.

This year, as a full-time racing driver in a competitive car, Taku has had the perfect showcase for his talent. True, he had some appalling luck with reliability earlier in the season, and has had to cope with the challenge of an ultra-quick team-mate in Jenson Button, but Taku has remained unfazed and is delivering on all his potential. He qualified on the front row of the grid for the first time at the European GP, followed that up with his first ever F1 podium at the US GP three weeks later and has only finished outside the points in the races he has completed on two occasions.

And this weekend, he returns to his own spiritual racing home of Suzuka for the penultimate Grand Prix of the season in front of his passionate home fans.

So for Taku, his dream has become a reality and he has laid the foundations for a glittering Formula One career. But among the vast Suzuka crowd this weekend will be hundreds of young boys peering through the fences, cheering on the number 10 car and aspiring to be the next Takuma Sato, just like he did 17 years ago. But now he's the measure of their dreams.

Feature courtesy of the BAR-Honda Lucky Tribe media site.