Toshio Suzuki (racing driver)

Toshio Suzuki Born 10 March 1955 (1955-03-10) Formula One World Championship career Nationality Japanese Active years 1993 Teams Larrousse Races 2 Championships 0 Wins 0 Podiums 0 Career points 0 Pole positions 0 Fastest laps 0 First race 1993 Japanese Grand Prix Last race 1993 Australian Grand Prix

24 Hours of Le Mans career Participating years 1985–1996, 1998–2000, 2008 Teams Dome, Team LeMans, Tom's, NISMO, TV Asahi Team Dragon, Tōkai University YGK Best finish 2nd (1999) Class wins 1 (1999)

Toshio Suzuki (鈴木 利男, Suzuki Toshio, born March 10, 1955) is a former racing driver from Saitama Prefecture, Japan.

Racing career

In youth, he won the All-Japan Kart Championships two times in 1975 and 1976. In 1979, he took the title of the first All-Japan Formula Three Championship.

In 1992, he won the 24 Hours of Daytona with Kazuyoshi Hoshino and Masahiro Hasemi. In the same year, he was runner-up in the Japanese F3000 championship.

Formula One

In 1993, He participated in two Formula One grands prix, standing in for Philippe Alliot at the Larrousse team. Though he scored no championship points, Suzuki finished both races.

After Formula One

He competed mainly in tha national championships like Japanese Formula 3000 Championship (later Formula Nippon), Japanese Touring Car Championship (JTCC) and All-Japan Grand Touring Car Championship (JGTC). He also participated into the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

After the retirement as a racing driver, he became team director.

In 2006, he became the director of the R&D SPORT in Super GT to continue the team that Direxiv abandoned.

GT-R

Most recently, he worked for Nissan as a test driver to develop the R35 Nissan GT-R.

Racing record

24 Hours of Le Mans results

Year	Class	No	Tyres	Car	Team	Co-Drivers	Laps	Pos.	Class Pos.
1985	C1	38	D	Dome 85C-L Toyota 4T-GT 2.1L Turbo I4	Dome Team	Eje Elgh Geoff Lees	141	DNF	DNF
1986	C1	38	D	Dome 86C-L Toyota 4T-GT 2.1L Turbo I4	Dome Co. Ltd.	Eje Elgh Beppe Gabbiani	296	DNF	DNF
1988	C1	85	Y	March 88S Nissan VG30ET 3.2L Turbo V6	Italiya Sport Team Le Mans Co.	Michel Trollé Danny Ongais	74	DNF	DNF
1989	C1	23	D	Nissan R89C Nissan VRH35Z 3.5L Turbo V8	Nissan Motorsports	Masahiro Hasemi Kazuyoshi Hoshino	167	DNF	DNF
1990	C1	23	D	Nissan R90CP Nissan VRH35Z 3.5L Turbo V8	Nissan Motorsports International	Masahiro Hasemi Kazuyoshi Hoshino	348	5th	5th
1993	C1	36	M	Toyota TS010 Toyota RV10 3.5L V10	Toyota Team Tom's	Eddie Irvine Masanori Sekiya	364	4th	4th
1995	GT1	23	B	Nissan Skyline GT-R LM Nissan 2.6L Turbo I6	NISMO	Kazuyoshi Hoshino Masahiko Kageyama	157	DNF	DNF
1996	GT1	23	B	Nissan Skyline GT-R LM Nissan 2.8L Turbo I6	NISMO	Kazuyoshi Hoshino Masahiro Hasemi	307	15th	10th
1998	GT1	27	M	Toyota GT-One Toyota R36V 3.6L Turbo V8	Toyota Motorsport Toyota Team Europe	Ukyo Katayama Keiichi Tsuchiya	326	9th	8th
1999	LMGTP	3	M	Toyota GT-One Toyota R36V 3.6L Turbo V8	Toyota Motorsport Toyota Team Europe	Ukyo Katayama Keiichi Tsuchiya	364	2nd	1st
2000	LMP900	23	M	Panoz LMP-1 Roadster-S Élan 6L8 6.0L V8	TV Asahi Team Dragon	Masami Kageyama Masahiko Kageyama	340	6th	6th
2008	LMP1	22	Y	Courage-Oreca LC70 YGK YR40T 4.0L Turbo V8	Tōkai University YGK Power	Haruki Kurosawah Masami Kageyama	185	DNF	DNF

Complete Formula One results

(key)

Year	Entrant	Chassis	Engine	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	WDC	Points
1993	Larrousse F1	Larrousse LH93	Lamborghini V12	RSA	BRA	EUR	SMR	ESP	MON	CAN	FRA	GBR	GER	HUN	BEL	ITA	POR	JPN 12	AUS 14	NC	0

References

• Profile at grandprix.com

Sporting positions
Preceded by None	All-Japan Formula Three Champion 1979	Succeeded by Shuroku Sasaki
Preceded by Marco Apicella	Japanese Formula 3000 Champion 1995	Succeeded by Ralf Schumacher (Formula Nippon)