Super Formula

Kobayashi’s season never recovered from ‘disastrous’ tests

Kamui Kobayashi believes his Super Formula season never recovered from a pre-season testing period he says was a “disaster” for his KCMG team.

Jamie Klein Rachit Thukral

Published: Nov 15, 2022, 8:07 AM

Copy link

Share on Viber

Add as a preferred source

Kamui Kobayashi, KCMG

The Toyota FIA World Endurance Championship star endured a forgettable return full-time campaign in Japan’s top single-seater series after missing most of the 2021 season due to COVID-19 travel restrictions, finishing 17th in the points.

A fifth-place finish in April at Suzuka in the wet proved the highlight of a season that featured only two other top 10s, a ninth in the opening weekend at Fuji and 10th place in the final round of the season at Suzuka last month.

Ahead of the season, Kobayashi admitted that the time he had spent away from the Super Formula paddock had hurt his preparation, a point that he reiterated when looking back on his year speaking to Motorsport.com.

But he also admitted that the pre-season tests in Suzuka and Fuji had been a "complete disaster" for him due to various teething issues that prevented his KCMG team working on finding performance gains.

“I think we had a little bit of a lack of communication and experience from the last two years,” Kobayashi said. “I think we missed that momentum.

“The level of the championship is getting higher, and it’s becoming more difficult in terms of putting the car in the window. So I think the missed experience was quite expensive for us, to be honest. We couldn’t recover because we have no testing during the season.

“This year, the pre-season tests were a complete disaster for us, because the car wasn’t right and we never did any proper set-up work. We had some problems with everything, with the brakes, system problems… we didn’t do proper testing.

“You only get 16 hours of pre-season testing, then the season starts. If you are not right with the car after this point, you’re f***ed. There’s nothing you can do, we have no simulator. Honestly, momentum is really important in this championship.”

At the time of his fifth-place finish at Suzuka, Kobayashi said he felt his KCMG team had made a breakthrough, especially as teammate Yuji Kunimoto followed him home on that occasion in sixth (which also turned out to be the 2016 champion’s best result of the year).

However, with the benefit of hindsight, Kobayashi admitted that the result was something of a fluke owing to the weather: “It was [because it was] wet. It was nothing special for us.”

On whether he’ll race again in Super Formula next year, Kobayashi admitted his increasing commitments with the Toyota WEC team, of which he is now also team principal, were taking a toll on his schedule, but suggested he was keen personally to continue.

“It’s not easy [to manage my schedule], but still I’m very lucky to have the opportunity to race, and I’m definitely enjoying driving the car,” he said.

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 Red Bull junior Lawson set for Super Formula move

Next article Tsuboi still ‘one step away’ from recovering past form

Top Comments

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

View More & Comment

Latest news

"It's horribly painful" - Williams drops 2026 car upgrades to benefit 2027

Formula 1

F1 Formula 1

Sao Paulo GP

29 min

"It's horribly painful" - Williams drops 2026 car upgrades to benefit 2027

The lowdown on this year’s FIA F3 title protagonists

FIA F3

The lowdown on this year’s FIA F3 title protagonists

Iker Lecuona felt significant differences between Ducati's GP25 and GP26

MotoGP

MGP MotoGP

Qatar GP

1 h

Iker Lecuona felt significant differences between Ducati's GP25 and GP26

The Kimi Antonelli you don't know: Inside the Mercedes garage with F1's new world champion

Formula 1

F1 Formula 1

Mexican GP

2 h

The Kimi Antonelli you don't know: Inside the Mercedes garage with F1's new world champion

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