According to an article on ITV.com/f1, Taku has welcomed the new pressure on him from his team mate Anthony Davidson.

As usual, ITV play down Taku's achievements and the article fails to mention the margin with which Taku won the F3 championship  but that's in the past ... The question is now, will we see a new Taku?

From www.itv.com/f1: 

Tuesday, 17, April, 2007, 13:34 
 
 
Takuma Sato says that the challenge from team-mate Anthony Davidson will spur him on to better performances this season.

The Japanese driver was generally ahead of Davidson in Australia and Malaysia, but Bahrain saw the Englishman outperform him all weekend for the first time.

Davidson qualified 13th and ran as high as sixth at Sakhir, whereas Sato missed the first qualifying cut-off and struggled to stay with the upper midfield group in the race.

But Sato welcomes the pressure from his rapid partner.

"There's a sense of tension between us, but in a good way," he said.

"I'm expecting healthy competition from him and if I can find a new Taku through that, that will be a bonus."

Davidson and Sato are very familiar with each other, having been team-mates in British Formula 3, and shared test driver duties for BAR-Honda in the early 2000s.

Sato came out on top earlier in their careers – beating the less experienced Davidson to the 2001 F3 crown and then being promoted to the BAR race team ahead of him – but he knows that might change this year.

"From Anthony's point of view after we fought each other as team-mates for the British F3 championship and tested together while I raced in F1, he must now think it's the year to get his revenge on me," said Sato.

I like Anthony almost as much as I like Taku, as people - but so far Anthony has yet to impress me on the track in the same way as Taku does. Anthony is fast - but Taku is a racer.

I want to see Anthony making up places like Taku does. Taku's starts are magic, has Anthony got the same gift?

One thing is for sure people, we have two of the best people in F1 and it is good to know that whilst they like each other, they also know the game.

Go Taku!  Go Ant!