Jin Kusuma

**(WIP)**

Jin Kusuma

Jin Kusuma (Born 8 July 1997) is an Indonesian-Korean racing driver. He competes full-time in Formula One World Championship, driving with the number 5 for Williams Racing Team in 2024. He has won the Formula 1 world championship with Ferrari in 2021.

He had also taken an interest in racing for the Indy 500, Super Gran Touring (GT) racing as well as 24 Hours of Le Mans, and has raced two of three of these categories in 2022. He raced Le Mans with team United Autosport and was awarded 3rd place alongside his teammates for Le Mans and vice champion in the GT300 with team GAINER, both in the same year.

## Personal Life

Kusuma was born in Jakarta, Indonesia but shortly moved to Vancouver, Canada. His parents of dual citizenship (Indonesian and Canadian), Handoyono Kusuma and Jee Sang-Hee have decided to move the family to Canada to provide their children, Jin along with his older brother Jee Seung-Gi, a better environment growing up. They have aspirations for their children to be athletes, which is why Jin had picked up on racing, contrary to his brother who had taken the path of a badminton player.

Jin’s relationship with his family is very tightly-knit as he once stated in an interview that he “owes his life to his family, because they have been his biggest supporters ever since he has started his racing career”. He specifically mentioned that his relationship with his brother is “somewhat of a mixed bag, but has been the reason he is the person, and champion he is today”. His family is almost never seen absent on a race, even if one couldn’t attend, one or the other will always be seen in the paddock to support him.

Growing up, Jin dreamt of following in his older brother’s footsteps of being a badminton player. But his father was an avid fan of GT cars and Formula racing, and because he was also one of Jin’s biggest figures in life, he had influenced young Jin to had taken a path of a racer.

Despite moving to Canada at a very young age from his country of birth, Jin still feels as if Indonesia is his true home, stating that the country deserves more representation within the world of sports, especially Motorsport. Hence why Kusuma decided to race under the Indonesian flag, staying true to his roots.

Jin debuted for Formula 1 in 2016 for Red Bull’s junior team Scuderia Toro Rosso and had underwent the process of getting into F1 through F4, F3 and F2 under the same junior team. he had grown into this sport alongside his karting teammates, Jenson Cote and Alexi Ster.

Jin and Jenson’s reputation together was renowned to be the formidable duo of the Formula world, growing up being each other’s best friend and rival to each other’s teammate in Ferrari living up to their dream of racing for Ferrari together. But within the second half of the 2021 season, dispute arose between the two when fighting for the championship to the point that their friendship was at the brink of collapse. This causes Jin to “retire” from Formula 1 the following year, carrying a big regret, despite winning the championship, and reflecting on himself while racing in other categories of the sport (GT300 and 24 Hour Le Mans) to get a fresh perspective on racing.

(Work In Progress)