As announced earlier today at the Motor Sports Japan festival, third driver Kamui Kobayashi will replace Timo at Interlagos. Kamui took part in Friday practice at Suzuka while Timo recovered from illness and acquitted himself well despite difficult conditions.
That's a lie... Timo ran in practice but he crashed in Qualy Kamui didn't run on Friday as 3rd drivers aren't allowed to run on Fridays...
it will be intresting to see another rookie this season though, allthough i got a feeling hes gonna suck, where did he do hes feeder series ive never heard of him before(Kobayashi).
Nakajima's best championship results:
Formula Toyota = 1st
Japanese F3 = 2nd
Super GT (GT300) = 8th
F3 Euroseries = 7th
GP2 Series = 6th
Kobayashi's best championship results:
Formula Toyota = 2nd
Italian F.Renault = 1st
F.Renault Eurocup = 1st
F3 Euroseries = 4th
GP2 Asia = 1st
GP2 Series = 16th (in two seasons!)
Side-by-side in same championships:
2003 Formula Toyota: NAK 1st, KOB 2nd
2006 F3 Euroseries: NAK 7th, KOB 8th
I think Nakajima has a slight lead on Kobayashi, judging by statistics alone.
You can't. It's why you get so many concept one-make series. Series that try and promote driver-over-equipment. In fact one-make series in my experience cause the opposite effect. It places far too much emphasis on results as there is an illusion of a 'level-playing' field. With this illusion in place very average drivers with large wealth (and fair play to them for having that wealth I whole heartedly support hard workers) can still out-spend their rivals without people questioning if it's them or their talent.
It's why it's so hard for teams to sport good drivers and thus end up investing in young karters. From a personal point of view driving attitude on and off track is far more important than results. For example I remember seeing Jules Bianchi race karts 3+ years ago and knew pretty much straight away he was the nuts and a name for the future. He hadn't won any major senior title at the time...same with hamilton 10+ years ago. it's not about results. Mind you Aaro Vainio has both attitude and results....
But I only deal with karting and with karting you can see behind the veil. In cars it's much harder for fans to judge who really is good or not. So to return to my point - stats mean jack (.. for the most part )
Nakajima was given one of the best rides in GP2 though.
Anything can happen though, look at Justin Wilson compared to Webber, dominated him in F3000 but got absolutely killed when he was team mate with him in Jaguar.
He will have to do good in Brazil though if he wants to give himself anychance of Starting an F1 career going by hes mediocore results in GP2.