Mako Sato

Mako Sato (佐藤 真子 Satō Mako, known as Maya in the Tokyopop version) is the driver of Impact Blue, and one of Takumi Fujiwara's opponents before he joins Project D. She drives a Nissan SilEighty, and was known as the fastest on Usui pass alongside Sayuki, her navigator, before she becomes a professional racer at the end of Final Stage.

Biography
Mako Sato is known as the fastest driver on Usui pass alongside Sayuki, her navigator, in First Stage. Very little is known about her past life, but she has a soft spot for cars and men who like cars. She becomes one of Takumi Fujiwara's opponents in First Stage before he joins Project D. The race ends after Mako enters a corner too quickly, and spins out, almost causing an accident between the two cars. As a result, despite the race nearly ending in a tie, Mako concedes the victory to Takumi.

Mako became interested in Iketani of the Akina SpeedStars. She originally got close to him in order to race Takumi's Eight-Six in Usui, offering her virginity in exchange. But she and Iketani developed true feelings to each other later on in the series. Unfortunately, a misunderstanding kept them apart.

Later on Mako faces on some Lan Evo drivers of Emperor team who came with the intent to defeat Usui drivers. Fortunately for her, neither Kyoichi Sudo, nor Seiji Iwaki was present at the time. Instead Mako and Sayuki battles Satake, an average skilled Lan Evo driver who makes fun of Mako and Sayuki as he believed female racers are not too fast. Mako battles his Evo IV as the former takes the lead. Satake keeps up with them until Mako speeds up into C-121 corner and drifts into it while Satake, who came into the corner way too fast, understeers and crashes into the guardrail. Later on, Impact Blue and Shingo and Nakazato spends their Christmas vacation on a snow park. One of the members of the Myogi NightKids member, Miyahara showed feelings for Mako and asks her if she can leave street racing so that they can date and settle down. Mako considers this at first, but later on after Mako takes him in her SilEighty and drives hard on the mountain pass, Miyahara understands she still wants to continue street racing, hence they both move on.

Some while later, Impact Blue once again battles in Usui, this time a duo in an Altezza challenges them to a battle as they didn't stop bothering Mako and Sayuki while they were training in Usui. Mako chases them and keeps up with them until she decided to overtake them before C-121 corner, winning the battle. After some while Mako and Sayuki spots Iketani once again after a long time, this time when Iketani was on his way to a family meeting and they coincidentally meet at a parking lot. Iketani was destined to meet Mako once again later on to tell his true feelings to her, but another incident made him almost miss his chance to meet her. Iketani was about to tell that he actually loved her, but when Mako tells him that she will become a professional racer, Iketani decided not to open his feelings to her as that can distract her career and affcet her negatively. Despite saying they will meet later on, they never met ever since.

Mako also attends Takumi's final race against Shinji Inui of Sidewinder with Sayuki, engaging in conversation with Shinji Inui during the hillclimb race between Keisuke Takahashi and Go Hojo, not knowing that he is Takumi's opponent for the downhill until he reveals that he is.

As mentioned earlier, Mako is seen becoming a professional racer at Twin Ring Motegi with her SilEighty modified as a race car.

Trivia
Despite the fact that both Iketani and Mako were at the same place during Project D's final battles in Tsubak Line in Kanagawa, they never met, as mentioned previously in Extra Stage 2. Even when they Akina SpeedStars and Impact Blue (along with others) were present at the exact same spot to congratulate Takumi for winning the final battle of Project D.