Nakajima has been with Toyota since their first endurance campaign in 2012 and is one of the team’s key members. This year, fellow Japanese driver Kamui Kobayashi has joined the endeavour. He will be sharing the #6 TS050 Hybrid with Stéphane Sarrazin and Mike Conway. It’s the first time Toyota has had two “homegrown” drivers in the team. Is that a good thing?

For sure, it’s better, especially for Japanese fans. Kamui is a popular driver and quite famous in Japan and we are getting more media attention thanks to fans, which is positive. And it takes some pressure off me as I’m no longer the only Japanese driver with Toyota. Seriously, whichever car wins, there’ll be a Japanese driver in it and everyone will be happy.  I would be the only one disappointed if it’s not mine, but I would be happy for my country.

Nakajima and Kobayashi know each other well. They were both in Formula One and in Super Formula. We’ve been racing together for a long time, sometimes as teammates, sometimes as opponents. It’s great to have him. Whether or not he’s Japanese doesn’t really make that much difference to me. The main thing is that he’s an excellent driver. He’s got pace and reliability. I think overall as a team, it’s an advantage to have him on board.

So far in the history of Le Mans 24 Hours, only two Japanese drivers have won. Masanori Sekiya in 1995 with a McLaren F1 GTR and Seiji Ara in the Audi R8 in 2004. Are you and Kamui particularly motivated at the prospect of becoming the third Japanese driver to win?

What we want is to win the race but we don’t really focus on being the third Japanese driver to win Le Mans. We just want to be the winner. But if we manage it, of course, a Japanese driver in a Japanese car has even more impact. It’ll be massive news in Japan. So that would attract even more media attention, so in a way, yes, it would change our circumstances.

Kazuki Nakajima has been racing the 24 Hours of Le Mans with Toyota since 2012. He has plenty of experience to draw on to prepare this race.

Every year is very different. The first year, it was all new. We had a great race but we were beginners. The second year we were behind Audi but there wasn’t as big a gap as in 2015.  In 2014 we dominated the race. So this year will be different again. I think we’re close to the others; nobody has any room to manoeuvre. We all need to keep pushing and that means reliability gets tested to the limits. I think we can get a bit closer to Audi and Porsche. By optimising the set-up and everything I think we can close the gap. I think we’re even closer than before. I’m confident. I feel we can fight and clock some good race lap times. 

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Photo: Kazuki Nakajima seems very relaxed in the run-up to the 24 Hours of Le Mans.