Kamui Kobayashi: An East Asian Emissary at Formula One
Born on 13th September, 1986, in Hyogo, Japan, Kamui Kobayashi spring boarded his race driving career upon taking up kart racing at a fairly young age. The young motorsports fanatic took the conventional road through regional kart racing success to victories at the national platform before finally making it to the big stage.
It was a sign of the success to come when Kobayashi managed to win the third position in the SL Takarazuka Tournament Cadet Class at a tender age of just nine. Less than a decade later, the talented youngster added another five junior titles to his name. Predictably, Kobayashi’s impressive run soon won the much-desired notice of Toyota, and in 2001, the Japanese motorcar-producing giants offered him a place at their young drivers’ project.
Grabbing the opportunity with relish, Kobayashi resolved to hone his driving nous as much as possible under the expert eye of the Toyota staff. The young East Asian’s focused struggle finally paid off in 2003 when he landed his initial full-time single-seater race drive for Toyota. Kobayashi ended the season with an impressive second place in the aggregate Formula Toyota rankings. The much-needed funding from Toyota helped realise Kobayashi’s European ambitions when, in 2004, the enthusiastic youngster headed to the Italian Formula Renault series to unveil his driving muscle on the international platform.
The move to shift away from home was a bold one, but Kobayashi remained steadfast. The East Asian put on a solid show to book two victories and three pole standings before finishing seventh in the championship’s aggregate rankings. Determined to exhaust all available opportunities to the brim Kobayashi also made race appearances at the year’s German and Dutch Formula Renault series. Palpably ambitious, the Japanese star decided to prolong his stint at Formula Renault for another season. Opting to contest at the 2005 Italian and European series, Kobayashi made mincemeat of both competitions and ended the season with both championship titles to his name.
Kobayashi then took the familiar route towards Formula Three in 2006 where he battled at the F3 Euro championship. The East Asian emissary concluded the season’s campaign quite respectably after clinching an aggregate eighth position on the standings table. The same year, Kobayashi grabbed headlines for unexpectedly seizing the pole position at the celebrated Macau Grand Prix.
Convinced their protégé offered considerable promise, Toyota presented Kobayashi with a mouth watering opportunity to impress on a Formula One car. After enjoying his very initial Formula One test outing in late 2006, courtesy Toyota, Kobayashi made his way back to Europe for the 2007 Formula Three Euro series title challenge.
The East Asian’s second season at the European competition saw his performances improve significantly and he finished a respectably successful season with a fourth position. Kobayashi’s natural pace and rapidly mounting confidence on track was sufficient in persuading Toyota to enlist him as their full-time substitute driver for the squad’s 2008 Formula One campaign.
Eager to prevent his racing skills from getting rusty, Kobayashi complemented his job at Toyota with appearances at the highly competitive GP2 series. The rookie sealed two victories in the Asian leg of the series and won the GP2 main series Catalunya event to finish the year ranked 16th in the aggregate standings.
In 2009, Kobayashi kept his work for Toyota’s Formula One team going side-by-side with his participation in the GP2 series. The budding racer won the years GP2 Asian series championship title after joining ranks with the DAMS (Driot-Arnoux Motorsport) squad. However, Kobayashi did not manage to emulate this success at the GP2 Series main circuit, where he had to content himself with a 16th position for a second season in the running. Meanwhile, Kobayashi also filled-in for Toyota’s first-choice driver, Timo Glock, more than once in 2009 and put on some solid shows on every occasion. However, when Toyota decided to pull out of Formula One late in 2009, Kobayashi immediately pledged his future to BMW Sauber as a first choice driver for the 2010 season.
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