TOKYO: Japanese driver Kazuki Nakajima says he is raring to go all out in his first Formula One race in Brazil this month and join the elite club of fathers and sons in the world's premier motor racing.
“As I have nothing to lose, I will go full out,” said the 22-year-old son of Satoru Nakajima, who was the first regular Japanese F1 driver and raced for Lotus and Tyrrell in the mid-1980s and early 1990s.
He was speaking to Japanese media by telephone from his home in Oxford, England, on Tuesday when Williams announced the younger Nakajima, the team's official test and reserve driver, would race at Interlagos, Sao Paolo, on Oct 21.
He will replace veteran Alexander Wurz who retired from the sport on Monday.
“I was told about the plan after the Chinese Grand Prix (on Sunday). I have mixed feelings as I think about Wurz. But I want to enjoy while driving,” he said, according to Japanese sports dailies.
The Nakajimas will be the first Japanese to have experienced F1 as father and son.
“I didn't think much about it. But I think it's something special,” said the younger Nakajima, who drove the Williams FW29 during Friday practice at the Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai.
The Williams team said the Brazilian GP is “not an evaluation exercise for a race seat in 2008.”
Brazil was where his father, now 54, made his F1 debut in the opening round in 1987, although the circuit was not the same – Autodromo de Jacarepagua in Rio De Janeiro.
Other fathers and sons in F1 included Graham and Damon Hill, Gillles and Jacques Villeneuve, Wilson and Christian Fittipaldi, Mario and Michael Andretti, Keke and Nico Roseberg, and Jack and David Brabham. – AFP
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