Sunday March 17th, 2002

Rookie Takuma Sato was "really sorry" after crashing into the back of Jordan teammate Giancarlo Fisichella at the start of the Malaysian Grand Prix on Sunday.

Sato, starting from 15th place on the grid, crashed against Fisichella's car at the first corner of the Sepang circuit on the second lap of the race, damaging his car's steering and front wing, and forcing Fisichella to come into the pits to replace his rear wing.

"I am really sorry about what happened with Giancarlo," said Sato after the race, where he finished in ninth place two laps down. "I apologise very much, it shouldn't have happened. I saw a Toyota pushing him going into the first corner and then into turn 2 they were side by side with me right behind them.

"Unfortunately I moved across and went into the back of Giancarlo. I damaged my steering and front wing in the accident but the mechanics were able to change the wing in the pit stop and I coped with the steering problem.

"Obviously I am very happy to have finished the race in the top ten, but this is marred by the fact that I damaged my teammate's chances of scoring points. I apologised to him immediately after the race and he took it extremely well which I think says a lot about his good character."

Italian Fisichella was also capable of finishing the race after spending a lot of time in the pits while the mechanics repaired his Honda-powered EJ12. The Jordan driver finished down in 13th place, three laps behind race winner Ralf Schumacher.

"It was good to see both cars finishing the race without any problems, but there is no denying that Takuma made a mistake by hitting me and that this damaged our chances of scoring points," said Fisichella. "Anyway he clearly feels pretty bad about it and he came to apologise immediately after the race.

"There is no point dwelling on it - I think he has learned a lesson. Otherwise the race went without incident, the car was a little tricky to handle but I am really encouraged by the reliability."

Published at 10:03:52 GMT