I was going to write an article about a few of the FD drivers, what is known about them thus far in the off season, how 2012 treated them and any information we may have leading into the 2013 season, but after writing just the first one I realized it may be better as a series of posts so, here is the first of the series “What will be of Formula D in 2013”, Daigo Saito edition…
Let me start off by saying that I am not a big Daigo fan and think that Formula D’s stance on him as a Rookie is weak to say the least. However, I have to give credit where it is due: he had 4 podium finishes in his first year, 2 first place and 2 third place finishes and managed to surprise everyone and take the FD 2012 championship. He also racked up a slew of 2012 FD awards including (obviously) Rookie of the Year, Top Gun of the Year, Ace of the Year, Hardest Charging Driver, and Fan Favorite Car of the Year. What is more impressive is the fact that amongst all the other V8 NA cars he did it all in a boosted 2JZ engine pulling close to 1200HP.
Now as I am not a native Japanese speaker it’s hard for me to follow Daigo in this off season, but it has been covered on a couple other blogs that Daigo purchased Samuel Hubinette’s Dodge Challenger a little while ago. As well as there being rumors that he purchased 2 NASCAR Dodge engines a while back. There had been rumors during the 2012 season that he might be bringing a Supra to FD in 2013. During the after season there were rumors of him working on a Dodge SRT Viper, but those may have been caused by the purchase of the NASCAR v8 engines. All of this information shatters the previously safe assumption that Daigo would be sticking with a Lexus/Toyota chassis as he seems to have been doing throughout his career and from what I can tell all of the series he has been driving in. In addition, Daigo is the only driver to have driven on 4 different tire manufacturers during his career so there isn’t even a safe assumption as to what he will be driving on next season.
So it looks like as of right now Daigo seems to be, as Winston Churchill said, “a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.”
