Toshio Suzuki (racing driver)

Toshio Suzuki Born (1955-03-10) 10 March 1955 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	Team	Co-Drivers	Car	Class	Laps	Pos.	Class Pos.
1985	Dome Team	Eje Elgh Geoff Lees	Dome 85C-L-Toyota	C1	141	DNF	DNF
1986	Dome Co. Ltd.	Eje Elgh Beppe Gabbiani	Dome 86C-L-Toyota	C1	296	DNF	DNF
1988	Italiya Sport Team Le Mans	Michel Trollé Danny Ongais	March 88S-Nissan	C1	74	DNF	DNF
1989	Nissan Motorsports	Masahiro Hasemi Kazuyoshi Hoshino	Nissan R89C	C1	167	DNF	DNF
1990	Nissan Motorsports International	Masahiro Hasemi Kazuyoshi Hoshino	Nissan R90CP	C1	348	5th	5th
1993	Toyota Team Tom's	Eddie Irvine Masanori Sekiya	Toyota TS010	C1	364	4th	4th
1995	NISMO	Kazuyoshi Hoshino Masahiko Kageyama	Nissan Skyline GT-R LM	GT1	157	DNF	DNF
1996	NISMO	Kazuyoshi Hoshino Masahiro Hasemi	Nissan Skyline GT-R LM	GT1	307	15th	10th
1998	Toyota Motorsport Toyota Team Europe	Ukyo Katayama Keiichi Tsuchiya	Toyota GT-One	GT1	326	9th	8th
1999	Toyota Motorsport Toyota Team Europe	Ukyo Katayama Keiichi Tsuchiya	Toyota GT-One	LMGTP	364	2nd	1st
2000	TV Asahi Team Dragon	Masami Kageyama Masahiko Kageyama	Panoz LMP-1 Roadster-S-Élan	LMP900	340	6th	6th
2008	Tōkai University YGK Power	Haruki Kurosawa Masami Kageyama	Courage-Oreca LC70-YGK	LMP1	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)