Last week Takuma Sato returned to the Jordan Grand prix factory and did his first live online interview.  Hewlett-Packard launched Learning Solutions on 4 December, including the ‘Virtual Classroom’ technology which was used to link up Takuma Sato with IT journalists who had logged on from locations across the world.

Takuma used conference call and internet chat technology to answer questions about his career and his hopes for the future, and even proved he knows his stuff when it comes to IT.

After seeing HP’s new tools - designed to facilitate interactive seminars and meetings over the internet - he said, “Communication is an important thing no matter what you do, not only motor racing.  I need to communicate with the race and test team and my engineers and it helps to be completely computer literate.”

“I have an interest in computer technology and use the internet, email and some computer games by myself but I’m certainly not an expert or a programmer!  I found the data analysis in Formula 3, and last year in F1 testing, really interesting and I’m looking forward to those aspects of my work next year.”

One journalist asked him whether playing Formula One driving games could help his performance on the track.

“Games are very different from the real world.  I quite enjoy playing on the PC or Playstation but that is just for fun.  If you want to practise or learn a track, you have to go the circuit and drive it, even in a road car, and one lap of the circuit is worth more than 100 hours of playing it on a game.”

Takuma spent the rest of the interview answering questions about his progression to Formula One, which began not with karts, as is traditional with most current F1 drivers, but bicycles.

“I really loved cars and karts but unfortunately my parents had no idea about motor racing so I couldn’t do any karting stuff.  I still loved cars, but rode and raced bicycles, always thinking about driving.”

“It all changed when I was 19.  I saw a magazine with something about Honda’s Suzuka Racing School and they had an age limit – you had to be under 20 years old, but if you could get there, you would get a huge scholarship from them, and I thought, OK, this is my last chance.”

Five years later, Takuma has some impressive racing performances and the British Formula 3 Championship under his belt, and is poised to join the motorsport elite of the Formula One grid.  A world apart from his youth, and from his home – and he wouldn’t swap it for anything.

“I go back to Japan at least twice a year and when I come back to England, where I live now,  I miss my friends, family, and Japanese food!  But you can get good Japanese food in London and I can communicate with friends and family by telephone and email.  I’m training hard and looking forward to the 9th of January when I will finally be able to start testing.  I really can’t wait to get in the car!”