Wednesday Wrap-Up: A.J. Foyt Racing's 2014 Season

This is the second of eleven reviews of the teams that participated in the 2014 Verizon IndyCar Series season.

We move to A.J. Foyt Racing. The team came out of the gate with a surprise pole position at St. Petersburg and it appeared Takuma Sato was finally going to reign in his recklessness ways and become a top tier driver. His 2013 season featured a fairy tale start with his first career IndyCar victory and first victory in anything in over a decade and was leading the championship by 13 points entering the Indianapolis 500. However, the team picked up only one top ten in the final fifteen races and seven finishes outside the top twenty. Sato was in contention for the victory at St. Petersburg, leading 33 laps from pole position but finished seventh after losing time on pit stops. The first race was promising but 2014 turned out to be just like all the others in Sato's professional career.

Takuma Sato
After the top ten in Florida, Sato's season took the predictable nose dive we have all come to know. He had a decent run at Long Beach but was caught up in the Josef Newgarden-Ryan Hunter-Reay accident. He beached his car on lap one in the wet conditions at Barber but recovered for a thirteenth place finish. He managed a ninth in the Grand Prix of Indianapolis and ran in the middle of the pack in the Indianapolis 500 all day, finishing 19th after starting 23rd.

Once the month of June began, things started going down hill and fast. A pair of 18th place finishes at Belle Isle, the second after stuffing it into the turn five tires late in the race. He did pick up his second pole position of 2014 for Belle Isle 2. Another 18th place at Texas made it tic-tac-toe three in a row, this time the engine went up in flames on him with only seven laps to go. Houston would not be a great homecoming for the team. Sato led laps early in race one but got caught in an accident with the lapped car of Mikhail Aleshin, ending his Saturday just past the 1/3 mark. He would retire again on Sunday, this time in the turn eight barrier all by himself.

Electrical gremlins ended his day after 25 laps at Pocono, another accident with Aleshin ended his night at Iowa and damage from a first lap accident in Toronto 1 led to three consecutive races where Sato was the first driver to retire from the race. Toronto 2 was a complete turn around for A.J. Foyt Racing, from 22nd on the grid to a top five, the team's first since finishing second at São Paulo last season. Sato got in another first lap accident at Mid-Ohio but this time he was able to continue however he could only manage an 18th place finish.

Sato was a non-factor at Milwaukee finishing fifteenth but the final two weekends in California were amazing high notes for Sato and A.J. Foyt Racing (Sidebar: Ironically, as I type this I am listening to U2's "California (There Is No End to Love)" and that wasn't planned at all. What a coincidence. Moving on). Just like in Toronto 2, strategy played into Sato's favor as he went from 20th to fourth at Sonoma. At Fontana, Sato qualified fourth and finished sixth, running toward the front all night in the season finale and the sixth place finish elevated Sato from 20th in the championship to 18th ahead of Graham Rahal and Houston 1 winner Carlos Huertas.

Takuma Sato's 2014 Statistics
Championship Positions: 18th (350 points)
Wins: 0
Podiums: 0
Top Fives: 2
Top Tens: 5
Laps Led: 66
Poles: 2
Fast Sixes: 2
Fast Twelves: 2
Average Start: 12.176 (13th in IndyCar)
Average Finish: 15.444 (21th)

Before the season began I thought Foyt would fire Sato midseason but he stuck with him. Can Foyt afford to keep the Japanese on for another year? Success is sporadic for Sato. He has never scored three consecutive top ten finishes in his IndyCar career and he hasn't scored three consecutive top ten finishes in any series since the final three races of the 2004 Formula One season where he finished sixth, fourth and sixth at China, Japan and Brazil respectively.

Sato is turning 38 this January. Is it worth keeping him on for a flash in the pan every eighth race? A.J. Foyt Racing has shown to have the equipment to compete at a top level but it should be obvious Sato is not the guy who can make Foyt a threat week in and week out. We all know he has the speed but he doesn't have the consistency. He's hasn't had the consistency since winning the British Formula Three championship in 2001 (By the way, looking over the 2001 British Formula Three championship. Damn, what a driver line-up: Sato, Anthony Davidson, James Courtney, Gianmaria Bruni, Andy Priaulx, André Lotterer, Mark Taylor, Ryan Dalziel, Alex Gurney, Robbie Kerr and Robert Doornbos).

If Foyt were to expand to two cars with Jack Hawksworth, keeping Sato makes sense as he provides veteran leadership for Hawksworth to lean. Other than that scenario though, it doesn't make sense to have Sato if you are a single car team.