Nakajima, who for his part very much overshadowed by his teammate, proved to be steady if the unspectacular driver. He openly admitted that he favored the faster circuits such as Silverstone, Hockenheim, Österreichring and Monza as well as his home track of Suzuka, but was ill at ease on the tighter circuits. He qualified 17th in Monaco and finished 10th, 24th in Detroit before crashing out on lap 1, and 17th in Hungary before suffering a broken driveshaft on the first lap. Nakajima's best finish in his first season was a 4th at Silverstone for the British Grand Prix. He finished the season in 12th place with 7 points scored. Nakajima's best qualifying performance came in Round 15 in Japan for what was the first Japanese Grand Prix since 1977. At the Honda-owned Suzuka circuit, Nakajima qualified in 11th place, only four places, and 0.962 seconds behind Senna. It was the closest he would qualify to his teammate all season (as it was his home track, Nakajima had actually completed more laps at Suzuka than the entire F1 grid combined). During the season, television viewers were able to get an up-close view of the Japanese rookie's driving as his car usually carried an onboard camera.