Satoru Nakajima

Satoru Nakajima

In 2008, as the chairman of Formula Nippon
Born	(1953-02-23) 23 February 1953 Okazaki, Aichi, Japan
Formula One World Championship career
Nationality	Japanese
Active years	1987 - 1991
Teams	Lotus, Tyrrell
Races	80 (74 starts)
Championships	0
Wins	0
Podiums	0
Career points	16
Pole positions	0
Fastest laps	1
First race	1987 Brazilian Grand Prix
Last race	1991 Australian Grand Prix

Satoru Nakajima (Japanese name: 中嶋 悟 ; born February 23, 1953^[1]) is a former racing driver from Japan.

Career

Nakajima was born into a farming family living just outside Okazaki, Japan. He began driving cars in his early teens in the family's garden with his older brother giving him tips, careful that they were not caught by their father. He felt a great deal of exhilaration behind the wheel of a car, and from then on knew what he wanted to do.

He started racing after he finished school and passed his driver's licence. In 1973 he was a rookie in the Suzuka Circuit series, which he won. Five years later, he won his first race in Japanese Formula Two. In 1981 he won his first championship, thus beginning a period of domination in the series. He won five of the next six championships, all of them equipped with a Honda V6 engine.

Nakajima participated in 80 Formula One Grands Prix, debuting in the Brazilian Grand Prix on 12 April 1987, bringing Honda engines to the Lotus team. He was 34 years old in his début race, making him one of Formula One's oldest debutantes of the modern era.^{[citation needed]} He finished sixth, and so scored a point, in only his second race, the 1987 San Marino Grand Prix. During his debut season, Nakajima was outclassed by his team mate Ayrton Senna, and many questioned Nakajima's place in F1, stating that if not for Honda he would not have been there on merit.

Honda had originally pushed for Nakajima to replace Nigel Mansell at Williams for the 1986 season (the Japanese company supplied their engines exclusively to Williams from 1984-86). However, Williams owner Frank Williams refused to dump Mansell, who had won his first two races towards the end of the 1985 season. Frank Williams, who was always more interested in the Constructors' rather than the Drivers' Championship, reasoned that having race winner Mansell, and then dual World Champion Nelson Piquet, would give the team its best shot at the Constructors' title, and that the unproven (in F1) Nakajima would struggle (Williams was to be proven correct on this). When Renault announced it was pulling out of F1 at the end of 1986, Lotus agreed to take on not only the Honda engines for 1987, but also to give the #2 seat in the team to Nakajima.

Nakajima demonstrating his Lotus 101 from 1989 at the 2011 Japanese Grand Prix.

1988 was another miserable year in F1 for both Nakajima and Lotus. In the final season for turbos and using the same V6 engines that propelled McLaren drivers Senna and Alain Prost to win 15 of the season's 16 races, Nakajima scored only a single point during the season finishing sixth in the opening race in Brazil. He also failed to qualify the Lotus 100T at both Monaco and Detroit.

Honda left the Lotus garage after the 1988 season, leaving Nakajima and team-mate Nelson Piquet driving the Judd V8 powered Lotus 101. The pair had a very up-and-down season, with both failing to qualify for the 1989 Belgian Grand Prix, the first time in their 30-year history that Lotus had failed to make the grid, symbolically heralding the beginning of the end for the British team. A great upside to Nakajima's 1989 was a fourth place and fastest lap in the rain-soaked Australian Grand Prix, scoring his only points of the year and also equaling his best career finish, from the 1987 British Grand Prix. Nakajima's race in Adelaide, in which he was dead last at the end of the first lap after a spin soon after the start, even drew praise from those who had criticised him in the past such as BBC television commentator and 1976 World Champion James Hunt.

Nakajima joined Tyrrell for the 1990 season (along with the promise of the team using the Honda V10 engine in 1991). He raced for them for two uneventful years at the back of the pack before ending his career. Honda left Formula One a year later to lay the first bricks on a works team, one that they had been working on during the Formula One season, and that CEO Nobuhiko Kawamoto finally admitted to in October. The car, the Honda RC100 was unveiled to the media in February 1993, driven by Nakajima. Shortly afterwards, it passed FISA crash tests, meaning that the company could enter their team into F1 competition. In an attempt to improve on their previous chassis, Honda built two more, the RC101 and 101B, the latter intended to be used for racing purposes, the former for crash testing. Nakajima had the first public testing of the 101B in Suzuka in January 1994. The company decided against entering its own cars in F1 at this time, instead opting to further their engine development in America with CART, and later, the IRL.

Nakajima still lives in the family home near Okazaki. He owns the Nakajima Racing entry in Japanese Formula 3000, or Formula Nippon. Nakajima drivers have won the Formula Nippon championship three times, Tom Coronel doing so in 1999, Toranosuke Takagi in 2000, and Ralph Firman in 2002. Nakajima's current drivers are Takashi Kogure and André Lotterer, who finished second in the 2004 championship, although he was tied in points with champion Richard Lyons. Nakajima's son, Kazuki raced for the Williams team in Formula One in the 2008 and 2009 seasons.^[2] Nakajima's younger son, Daisuke, is also a racing driver. He competed in the British Formula Three Championship in 2009 and 2010.^[2] Both Kazuki and Daisuke now compete in Formula Nippon, and Daisuke drives for Satoru's team.

Racing record

Japanese Top Formula Championship results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Complete Formula One results

(key) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Helmet

Nakajima's helmet was white with two red lines forming a circular end on the chin area, with a wide line on the rear of the helmet with written NAKAJIMA on it. His son Kazuki Nakajima uses a slightly different version of this helmet.

Video games

Between 1988 and 1994, Nakajima endorsed many Formula One video games for various consoles like Family Computer, Sega Mega Drive, Game Boy and Super Famicom. He also appeared as a playable driver in his Lotus 100T in Codemasters' F1 2013.

References

External links

• Nakajima Racing