Kazuki
Nakajima

Kazuki Nakajima was born on 11 January 1985 in Okazaki, Japan. His father, Satoru Nakajima, also raced in Formula One, and his younger brother Daisuke became a racing driver too. Nakajima started karting in 1996 and three years later won the Suzuka Formula ICA title. Toyota took him into its young driver programme. He won Formula Toyota in 2003, then finished fifth in Japanese Formula Three in 2004 and second in 2005. In 2006 he moved to the Formula Three Euroseries and ended the year seventh.

At the end of 2006 he became a Williams test driver. In 2007 he raced in GP2 for DAMS, finishing fifth overall and as the best rookie. At the season finale in Brazil that year he stood in for the retiring Alexander Wurz at Williams and finished tenth on his debut. In 2008 he was a regular race driver alongside Nico Rosberg. He took sixth in Australia after Rubens Barrichello was disqualified, and scored again at Monaco and in Britain. In Singapore he reached the third qualifying session for the first time, started tenth and finished eighth. He ended the season fifteenth in the championship.

He stayed with Williams in 2009 but scored no points and finished twentieth in the standings. At Silverstone he qualified fifth, his best grid position in Formula One. He had no seat for 2010. In total he started 36 Grands Prix and never reached the podium.

Nakajima then returned to Japan. In Formula Nippon, later Super Formula, he drove for TOM'S, finishing runner-up in 2011 and winning the titles in 2012 and 2014. He also raced in Super GT. From 2012 he drove for Toyota in the World Endurance Championship. With Fernando Alonso and Sébastian Buemi he won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2018 and 2019 and took the 2018-19 world championship. He won at Le Mans again in 2020. He retired from racing after the 2021 season.

Source: Wikipedia, “Kazuki Nakajima”. Text licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.