Super Formula Motegi II

Nakajima to make Super Formula return at Motegi

Kazuki Nakajima will make his first Super Formula return in next month's penultimate round of the season at Motegi, with Giuliano Alesi set to focus solely on his Super Formula Lights commitments.

Jamie Klein

Edited: Sep 17, 2021, 8:56 AM

Copy link

Share on Viber

Add as a preferred source

Kazuki Nakajima, Kuo VANTELIN TEAM TOM’S

Toyota FIA World Endurance Championship racer Nakajima has been away from the Super Formula paddock since the opening race of the campaign at Fuji Speedway back in April owing to his commitments with the Japanese manufacturer's Le Mans hypercar programme.

Giuliano Alesi has been filling the vacant seat since then, notably winning in just his second start at Autopolis, combining the role with his regular TOM'S Super Formula Lights duties.

Following last month's fifth round at the series at Motegi, TOM'S boss Jun Yamada told Motorsport.com that no decision had been made on whether Nakajima would contest the October race at the same track, despite the two-month gap in the WEC schedule freeing him up to return.

But now the Super Formula official website has clarified that Nakajima will indeed be back in action at Motegi, freeing up Alesi to focus on the final round of the Super Formula Lights season.

Alesi is likely to retake the #36 TOM'S cockpit for the Suzuka season finale as this falls on the same late October weekend as the first of Bahrain's two back-to-back WEC races, making Nakajima unavailable.

Nakajima is already back in Japan and was present for last weekend's Sugo SUPER GT round, where he was on commentary duties for Japanese TV network J Sports (pictured below).

KCMG had already confirmed in the wake of last month's Motegi race that Nakajima's Toyota WEC stablemate Kamui Kobayashi will be making what will be his first appearance of the season at Motegi.

That means Kazuto Kotaka, who has been filling in for Kobayashi at KCMG all season, is likely to drop down to TOM'S three-car Super Formula Lights line-up alongside Alesi and Hibiki Taira, who had to miss the most recent round at Motegi due to testing positive for COVID-19.

Tatiana Calderon is also expected to return to the Drago Corse team for the first time since April's Suzuka round at Motegi, having missed the previous three races at Autopolis, Sugo and Motegi.

We want your opinion!

What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?

Take our 5 minute survey.

- The Motorsport.com Team

Read and post comments

Share Or Save This Story

Copy link

Share on Viber

Previous article Kobayashi set for Super Formula return next month

Next article Fenestraz set for Super Formula return after visa breakthrough

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

View More & Comment

Latest news

Official race results: 2026 NASCAR Cup Phoenix II

NASCAR Cup

NAS NASCAR Cup

Phoenix II

5 min

Official race results: 2026 NASCAR Cup Phoenix II

Tyler Reddick wins Phoenix NASCAR Cup thriller as Kyle Larson crashes

NASCAR Cup

NAS NASCAR Cup

Phoenix II

10 min

Tyler Reddick wins Phoenix NASCAR Cup thriller as Kyle Larson crashes

WEC Barcelona: Toyota scores dominant 1-2 to seal manufacturers’ title

WEC

WEC WEC

Barcelona

6 h

WEC Barcelona: Toyota scores dominant 1-2 to seal manufacturers’ title

Hailie Deegan eying NASCAR Truck return but future plans remain uncertain

NASCAR Truck

NSTR NASCAR Truck

Phoenix

6 h

Hailie Deegan eying NASCAR Truck return but future plans remain uncertain

Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.

From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.

You have 2 options:

Become a subscriber.
Disable your adblocker.

Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here

Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page

Manage Alerts