Button and Barrichello the preferred choiceTakuma Sato has been handed six races to save his seat at BAR Honda and must start to prove his worth in Sunday`s Turkish Grand Prix, Nick Fry said today. Sato, 28, who partners Jenson Button, has raced for the team for the last two years but only scored his first point of a difficult season at the last race in Hungary.
BAR have signed current Ferrari driver Rubens Barrichello for 2006. "Takuma has from now to the end of the season to demonstrate that he can prove he can perform at a strong level," said Fry. "We hope he can, because he is an excellent team member and as a person we like him a lot. But this is a business and a high level sport and if he can`t prove that to us we will obviously have to consider other alternatives."
Barrichello`s arrival means one of the drivers in the current line- up is certain to lose his drive and Jenson Button is currently favourite to go because of a deal he signed with rivals Williams at the end of last year. If he succeeds in fighting his way out of that contract he is certain to partner Barrichello, but Fry admitted that if the Briton moves to Williams then Sato`s race drive status will still not be guaranteed.
"The situation is very simple in lots of ways," said Fry. "If Jenson stays there won`t be a race seat with Takuma, you don`t need to be a mathematician to work that out, we have two race seats and two great drivers. Whether Takuma stays with the team after that we will see, I think it is as much his decision as ours whether he would want to stay as a third driver, we could discuss it."
"If Jenson goes then there are no guarantees for Takuma. We have talked to more drivers than I can remember, to be honest, and we are not short of alternatives."
One possibility would be to promote highly-rated test driver Anthony Davidson into a race role after the Briton`s patient multi-year wait, but his long-term contract is soon to run out and he is in talks with Jordan and BMW.
Fry admitted that Davidson was `in with a good chance` of securing a seat and also confirmed that there have been talks with Williams driver Nick Heidfeld over a possible move. But he admitted: "At the moment our complete focus is on getting Jenson and helping him as much as we can with that. The alternatives are ones that we don`t want to consider because we want Jenson."


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