Shinji Nakano

Shinji Nakano

Nakano in 2009
Born	(1971-04-01) 1 April 1971 (age 53) Takatsuki, Osaka, Japan
Formula One World Championship career
Nationality	Japanese
Active years	1997–1998
Teams	Prost, Minardi, Jordan (Test Driver)
Entries	33
Championships	0
Wins	0
Podiums	0
Career points	2
Pole positions	0
Fastest laps	0
First entry	1997 Australian Grand Prix
Last entry	1998 Japanese Grand Prix
24 Hours of Le Mans career
Years	2005–2008, 2011–2014, 2016
Teams	Courage Compétition, Creation Autosportif, Epsilon Euskadi, OAK Racing
Best finish	14th (2011)
Class wins	0

His father, Tsuneharu, was also a racing driver. He competed in the All-Japan Formula Three Championship.

Pre Formula One Career

Formula One Career

 

Nakano made his debut at the 1997 Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne for the Prost Grand Prix team, owned by legendary four times Formula One World Champion Alain Prost. The 1997 season saw him score two world championship points with a pair of sixth places.

With his place at Prost heavily reliant on their engine partners Mugen-Honda, Nakano was dropped in favour of Jarno Trulli, with the second cockpit taken by Olivier Panis, when Prost switched to Peugeot engines. He subsequently joined Minardi for the 1998 season, alongside Esteban Tuero.

Nakano struggled in the under-powered, under-financed Italian team. He failed to score any points in 1998 and bowed out of Formula One racing for good at his home Grand Prix at Suzuka, Japan, having contested a total of 33 Grands Prix. He spent 1999 as an occasional test driver for the Jordan team, which also used Mugen-Honda engines.

After Formula One

After Formula One, Nakano went to race in CART for Walker Racing and Fernandez Racing. He made 56 starts from 2000 to 2002 with a best points finish of 17th in 2002 and a best race result of 4th at the 2002 Molson Indy Toronto. He also started 15th in the 2003 Indianapolis 500 for Beck Motorsports, finishing 14th. He competed in the 2006 and 2008 24 Hours of Le Mans races and returned to the event in 2011 with OAK Racing and 2012 with the Boutsen Ginon squad.

Nakano's helmet was black with a black circle on the top surrounded by a white halo, with a red and silver flame design surrounding the visor and a black and silver checkered flag behind of it, in CART he changed the black for white, the halo became blue, the black circle became red, the checkered flag disappeared and the flame became red with blue outline. in LeMans, he added more flames in the point where the checkered flag was.

Complete Japanese Formula 3000/Formula Nippon results

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

Complete Formula One results

(key)

^† Driver did not finish the Grand Prix, but was classified as they had completed over 90% of the race distance.

Complete American Open-Wheel Racing results

(key)

CART

IRL IndyCar Series

Complete JGTC results

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

24 Hours of Le Mans results

Year	Team	Co-Drivers	Car	Class	Laps	Pos.	Class Pos.
2005	Courage Compétition	Jonathan Cochet   Bruce Jouanny	Courage C60H-Judd	LMP1	52	DNF	DNF
2006	Courage Compétition	Jean-Marc Gounon   Haruki Kurosawa	Courage LC70-Mugen	LMP1	35	DNF	DNF
2007	Creation Autosportif Ltd.	Jamie Campbell-Walter   Felipe Ortiz	Creation CA07-Judd	LMP1	55	DNF	DNF
2008	Epsilon Euskadi	Stefan Johansson   Jean-Marc Gounon	Epsilon Euskadi EE1-Judd	LMP1	158	DNF	DNF
2011	OAK Racing	Nicolas de Crem   Jan Charouz	OAK Pescarolo 01 Evo-Judd	LMP2	313	14th	5th
2012	Boutsen Ginion Racing	Bastien Brière   Jens Petersen	Oreca 03-Nissan	LMP2	325	24th	10th
2013	Delta-ADR	Tor Graves   Archie Hamilton	Oreca 03-Nissan	LMP2	101	DNF	DNF
2014	Team Taisan	Martin Rich   Pierre Ehret	Ferrari 458 Italia GT2	GTE Am	327	28th	8th
2016	Race Performance	Nicolas Leutwiler   James Winslow	Oreca 03R-Judd	LMP2	289	44th	17th

Complete FIA World Endurance Championship results