MOTOR SPORT: Jordan's Takuma Sato has insisted he is still in the frame for a race seat with the team in 2003 and that his contract guarantees his place. The Japanese driver, who this weekend contests his first home Formula One grand prix, said he was looking forward to another season with Jordan and had already been given details of the team's winter test programme.
"Formula One is the idea for next year," he said. "I have a contract with the team, which is basically a two-year fixed contract, so next year I'll be with Jordan. My feeling now is that I just want to concentrate on this weekend. That's more important.
"But I think it's something I can say because I have the contract with the team," he added. "That's all I can say really. I've got a very good feeling from the team and they have confidence in the two drivers so I think it will happen."
He also confirmed Jordan would begin preparations for the 2003 season with a three-week test, beginning at the end of November. "Yeah we are plannning to run at the end of November. It's a three-week programme. I think Jerez, Barcelona, Silverstone, wherever. The normal places we go to."
Sato's seat has been under threat from Eddie Irvine in recent months, with team sponsor Benson & Hedges believed to be keen on the Irishman rejoining the Jordan team he left at the end of 1995.
Irvine's recent performances at Jaguar - he was third at Monza and did well in the early part of the US Grand Prix weekend before being scuppered by poor handling in the qualifying session - have reawakened speculation that he may be kept on at Ford-backed Jaguar for another year, with Spaniard Pedro De la Rosa shipping out in favour of Minardi's Mark Webber, who is believed to be confirmed with Jaguar for 2003.
Irvine, with three years under his belt at Jaguar and with better possibilities ahead next year thanks to a revamped design team, may hold out for a berth with the Big Cat, leaving Jordan to stick with Sato.
That may not be such a bad deal for Eddie Jordan. While he would lose part payment of Irvine's wages via a B&H cash injection, he is likely to reap some benefit from departing engine supplier Honda. The Japanese manufacturer is a keen sponsor of Sato's career and is believed to have offered Jordan significant funds to keep the talented but erratic former British F3 champion on board.
Despite finishing just seven of the first 11 races of the season, Sato has settled at Jordan, finishing his last five grands prix and scoring top-10 finishes in two. His times, too, have settled, with the Japanese edging closer and closer to highly regarded team-mate Giancarlo Fisichella.
Elsewhere, McLaren's David Coulthard came out against F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone's idea of handicapping dominant cars in next year's championship, a suggestion that will be put to the teams at a meeting at the end of this month. Ecclestone and FIA president Max Mosley have suggested that succesful cars be weighted by a kilogram per point won for the following race, a notion Coulthard said was against the spirit of Formula One. "The risk of giving a quick answer to it is that it probably won't get the thought it requires but as a knee-jerk reaction to putting ballast on and trying to handicap people doing a better job to improve the show, I don't think is right," said the Scot. "I think it goes against what Formula One stands for which is the people with the cleverest minds and the best budgets do the better job."
Meanwhile, Formula Nippon championship leader Ralph Firman is in Suzuka this weekend as a guest of the BAR Honda team. The Irish passport holder is putting his name in the frame for a seat in Formula One after a strong year in Japan's premier race series.
