Kazuki Nakajima

**Kazuki Nakajima** (**中嶋 一貴** in Japanese; born 11 January 1985) is a Japanese racing driver, who competes in the 2019 Super Formula Championship with Ventelin Team TOM'S. A former Formula One driver and factory driver for Toyota in the World Endurance Championship, **Nakajima** has two top level Japanese single seater titles, having won the 2012 Formula Nippon Championship, and the 2014 edition of Super Formula.

**Nakajima** followed the footsteps of his father Satoru Nakajima, who raced in F1 and Japanese Formula Two in the 1980s. His younger brother Daisuke Nakajima is also a racing driver, who competed against **Nakajima** for several seasons in SF.

## Background

Nakajima began his racing career in 1996 in karting, and quickly rose through the ranks to join the Toyota Young Driver Programme by 2001. The Japanese youngster duly moved into the Formula Toyota series in 2003, taking the title at the first attempt. 2004 saw Toyota move Nakajima into the All-Japan Formula 3 Championship, with Nakajima claiming two wins en-route to fifth in his maiden campaign.

### F1 Dreams

Nakajima claimed second in the 2005 edition of Japanese F3, before moving to Europe to pursue a dream of racing in Formula One. 2006 saw the Japanese racer complete a full season of the Formula 3 Euro Series, before becoming a test/reserve driver for the Toyota engined Williams F1 Team for 2007. Toyota also moved their junior driver in the GP2 Series, which became Nakajima's main focus in 2007.

However, Nakajima would get an unexpected run-out in F1 in 2007, debuting at the season ending Brazilian Grand Prix after the retirement of Alexander Wurz. Tenth on debut saw the Japanese ace signed as the team's second driver alongside Nico Rosberg for 2008. Nakajima would spend the 2008 campaign battling for the final points on many occasion, earning him a second season in F1 in 2009.

Unfortunately for Nakajima 2009 proved to be a poor season, with the Japanese racer failing to register a single points finish. As such, Nakajima was dropped from the team and, when Stefan GP had their entry to F1 rejected by the FIA, the Japanese racer was left without a seat in any series for 2010.

## Full Super Formula Record

Shown below are a series of tables outlining Kazuki Nakajima's career in Super Formula in statistical form.

### Super Formula Entries

The list below includes all of the teams and cars, as well as overall finishing positions for Kazuki Nakajima during their SF career:

 2012 | Petronas Team TOM'S | 2
 2013 | Petronas Team TOM'S | 1
 2014 | Petronas Team TOM'S | 37
 2015 | Petronas Team TOM'S | 1
 2016 | Vantelin Team TOM'S | 37
 2017 | Vantelin Team TOM'S | 37
 2018 | Vantelin Team TOM'S | 36
 2019 | Vantelin Team TOM'S | 36

### Career Results

Below is a table showing Kazuki Nakajima's full Super Formula record.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Rachit Thukral, 'Markelov joins Super Formula as Toyota reveals 2019 drivers', *motorsport.com*, (Motorsport Network, 07/02/2019), https://www.motorsport.com/super-formula/news/toyota-super-formula-2019-line-up/4333541/, (Accessed 25/04/2019)
2. ↑ Cite error: Invalid `<ref>` tag; no text was provided for refs named `KNak14C`
3. ↑ 3.00 3.01 3.02 3.03 3.04 3.05 3.06 3.07 3.08 3.09 3.10 3.11 3.12 'Kazuki Nakajima', *wikipedia.org*, (WikiMedia, 03/05/2019), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazuki\_Nakajima, (Accessed 09/05/2019)
4. ↑ Cite error: Invalid `<ref>` tag; no text was provided for refs named `KNak11A`
5. ↑ Cite error: Invalid `<ref>` tag; no text was provided for refs named `KNak12A`
6. ↑ Cite error: Invalid `<ref>` tag; no text was provided for refs named `KNak13A`
7. ↑ Cite error: Invalid `<ref>` tag; no text was provided for refs named `KNak14A`
8. ↑ Cite error: Invalid `<ref>` tag; no text was provided for refs named `KNak15A`
9. ↑ Cite error: Invalid `<ref>` tag; no text was provided for refs named `KNak16A`
10. ↑ Cite error: Invalid `<ref>` tag; no text was provided for refs named `KNak17A`
11. ↑ Cite error: Invalid `<ref>` tag; no text was provided for refs named `KNak18A`

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