Ukyo
Katayama

Ukyo Katayama was born in Tokyo on 29 May 1963. He spent three years racing in France before returning to Japan in 1988 to compete in Japanese Formula 3000. He took three podiums in 1990 and won the title in 1991, with two victories and three second places.

He made his Formula One debut at the 1992 South African Grand Prix with the Larrousse team, whose car was entered in the World Championship as a Venturi. The car was unreliable and ran in the midfield. In Canada he briefly ran fifth before his engine failed, and two ninth places were his best results of the year. For 1993 he moved to Tyrrell, where tenth place in Hungary was his top finish.

In 1994, driving the new Tyrrell 022, he scored points in three races and finished 17th in the championship with five points. He was often among the leading six, but reliability problems caused twelve retirements. In Germany he was running third when his throttle stuck open. His team-mate was Mark Blundell. He stayed with Tyrrell in 1995 and 1996 but scored no points, with two seventh places as his best results. At the 1996 Belgian Grand Prix he finished on the same lap as the winner, the only time he did so in Formula One. In 1997 he drove for Minardi, with two tenth places as his best finishes, and announced his retirement from Formula One at his home race. In total he made 95 race starts without reaching the podium.

After Formula One he raced in sportscars and GT events. At the 1999 24 Hours of Le Mans he finished second overall in a Toyota GT-One, shared with Keiichi Tsuchiya and Toshio Suzuki, and won the GTP class, in which it was the only car to finish. A tyre failure in the final hour ended any chance of challenging the leading BMW. In 2008 he took part in the Speedcar Series. He founded Team UKYO in 2000, which competed in the Japanese GT Championship, and as team leader he won three GT300 titles, in 2011, 2014 and 2017. The team also entered the Dakar Rally and from 2012 also competed in road cycling. Katayama is also a mountaineer, who climbed Cho Oyu in 2001 and later Manaslu.

Source: Wikipedia, “Ukyo Katayama”. Text licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.