Takuma Sato's worst-kept-secret deal to join Bobby Rahal's IndyCar team was finally confirmed on Friday morning. In a full interview, Marcus Simmons finds the Japanese raring to go for 2012

We're going to start this story by looking back 11 years – just to give you a little illustration of the warm regard in which Takuma Sato is held by some of the movers and shakers of the motorsport industry.

When he won the British Formula 3 Championship in 2001, completing a unique hat-trick by adding victories in the prestige F3 classics at Zandvoort and Macau, Sato's successes set Carlin Motorsport on the road to becoming the all-round powerhouse of junior single-seaters that it remains to this day.

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