Is Yuki Tsunoda Japan’s most successful racing driver?

The Tokyo native blitzed 2001 British F3 with 12 race wins, becoming its first ever Japanese champion.

He leapt straight to F1 with Jordan for 2002, but found the going tough. Notorious for crashing, he was let go by the team but would score a podium for BAR two years later.

After a final grand stint with Super Aguri, famously scoring points twice for the backmarker squad run on a shoestring, it was in IndyCar that Sato’s star truly rose.

He became the first ever Asian driver to win an IndyCar race in 2013 at Long Beach, before claiming a pair of Indy 500 wins in 2017 and 2020.

Sato will make a one-off appearance at this year’s 500 for the Rahal team as he bids for a hat-trick of victories – in between being an executive advisor for Honda’s racing efforts.

A challenger to Tsunoda as Japan’s greatest?

Kamui Kobayashi

Similar to Sato, Kobayashi arrived in F1 with a bang, but is now viewed as a safe pair of racing hands.

The Japanese driver made his grand prix debut with Toyota towards the end of the 2009 season, sensationally scoring points in his second race in Abu Dhabi.

Three subsequent years with Sauber brought a best finish of third at the 2012 Japanese GP (in-between the odd collision), as well as decent number of points finishes.

However, it was in sports cars that Kobayashi really shone.

Now in his ninth year of racing in WEC’s top tier for Toyota, the Japanese driver has two world championships and 17 race wins to his name – including Le Mans in 2021.

He has also taken on the role of driver-manager, being the team principal of Toyota’s WEC concern for the last two years.

Kazuki Nakajima

Kazuki Nakajima, like his father Satoru, struggled to make his mark on F1 with two unremarkable seasons at Williams from 2008-2009, part of its deal to use Toyota engines.

Nakajima’s best finish was sixth at the ’08 Australian GP, and he failed to score any points in his final F1 season.

Things took quite the upturn from there though.

Nakajima’s career gathered momentum first by winning two Super Formula titles in 2012 and 2014 while also getting his sports car activities underway, again with Toyota.

Three consecutive Le Mans wins (2018-2020) are accompanied by a WEC title in 2019 and 17 race victories.

Continuing the theme of going from race suit to, err, suit suit, he retired driving in 2021 and is now vice-chairman of Toyota Gazoo Racing Europe, which oversees its WEC team and other motor sport ventures.

Aguri Suzuki

Aguri Suzuki’s career really was feast or famine. He managed to fail to make it out of pre-qualifying for the entirety of his first full season in 1988 for Zakspeed – that’s 16 times in a row!

Just one year later though he was driving for the slightly better Larousse-Lambo team, taking its howling V12 to third in Japan – the first ever podium for a Japanese driver in F1.

That was, sadly, as good as it got behind the wheel for Suzuki, as five more seasons across Larousse, Footwork, Jordan and Ligier produced just two points finises.

It wasn’t over for Suzuki in F1 though. From 2006 to 2008 he ran the Super Aguri team, ostensibly set up to keep Takuma Sato’s grand prix career going.

Sato would score some unlikely points twice for the underdog team in 2007, but that wasn’t its biggest contribution to F1.

Super Aguri aerodynamicist Masayuki Minagawa came up with the ‘double diffuser’ idea before the team folded during 2008, and the concept was transferred over to the works Honda squad – soon to become Brawn GP.

That rest was history, but is it a case of what might have been for Aguri Suzuki’s plucky squad?

Masanori Sekiya

OK, so maybe Masanori-san only drove for five hours at the 1995 Le Mans. So what?

JJ Lehto and Yannick Dalmas might have done most of the heavy lifting that day (and night) in La Sarthe, but the record books still state Sekiya was the first Japanese person to win at Le Mans, and no one can take that away.

The trio famously did so in the McLaren F1 GT car, fending off the faster – on paper – prototypes in tricky wet conditions, the last time a car from a technically slower class has won the race overall.

Sekiya had a bit of a thing for Le Mans, despite never winning a race in any other major category. He finished second and fourth there previously in the monstrous Toyota TS010 Group C car, and even got married in the town.

The man’s is a true sports car cult hero – and Tsunoda is yet to match his achievements with a major victory.