Kamui Kobayashi

There's a few of us in Toyota.

Myself, I mean, it's not fair, but, you know, like, even in our team, there's myself, Nick De Vries, Sebastian Buemi, Kamui Kobayashi, my ex-teammate, Kazuki Nakajima, we're all ex-Formula 1 drivers.

My current team at Rio Herakawa is the reserve driver in Haas, so we've still got that dream of getting to F1, a bit like I did coming through endurance racing.

And then you've got up and coming, you've got young guys coming in who absolutely could have made it to F1 with all the ifs and buts that come along and all the things that need to align to be an F1 driver doesn't necessarily mean those 22 drivers are the absolute best in the world.

GP2 Asia will see the Sands of Bahrain International Circuit at Sakhir.

Kamui Kobayashi-san is leading the championship, and if Toyota stays in F1 for a few more years, Kobayashi will be one of the drivers.

I'm pretty sure this kid will be in Toyota car next year.

Replacing your truly, possibly? Probably, yeah.

And in fact, they're running four drivers, but in two pairs.

Today it's Naoya Gamou and, uh, Kamui Kobayashi, of course, World Endurance driver, Daytona winner.

Uh, they're in number 47, which is a Mercedes from KCMG.

Tomorrow it's Nerai Fukuzumi and, uh, Sho Tsuboi.

Yeah.

And equally for Yuki, who now equals the points all for Kamui Kobayashi on 125, tying to the top point score from Japan.

So positives for both of them really this weekend.

It's yeah.

Yeah, just the important thing about that 007 tyre change by the way, I think that's the first time they've been on mediums, so front, I got them the wrong way, no I didn't get the wrong way about it, it was front left and rear left six laps old but the right hand side's brand new yes that's what I saw going on I'm confusing myself with what I'm seeing but that's the first time that car's been on anything other than hard tyres in this race the track temperature has dropped but not by much 44.1 it was up to 47.48 early on air temperatures remain relatively constant actually at about 34 35 celsius throughout this race and here is the i think what will be no maybe not um as they come into the pit lane here's the rest of the stops Antonio Felix da Costa goes through to take the lead but he has to come in next time round he's got next to nothing in the tank that is really pushing it very very tight indeed 2% as he went down through the S's that is going to be zero by the time he comes in Dries van Toor on 5% 3% for Paul-Loup Chattan in the Magma the Genesis Magma racing car that is now cycling through into third the more laps you can do here the further into this last two hours is going to pay dividends later even whatever happens but if we stay green particularly that will make your last stop shorter you will need less energy simple as that

and that's been the game plan from from the outset really but nobody quite knew how long that final stint needed to be now the meat of the sandwich victor martin's track between two toyotas so this is fourth fifth and sixth positions kamui kobayashi is on an out lap whereas victor martin's has done one out lap and now continues on but still the tyre warming phase is happening for the Japanese and this will

be the lead when the three ahead of them pull in next time around yes this is the battle for the the this is the virtual talk about virtual fuel this is the virtual lead battle four cars together yeah and Kubica's right back in this they've barely mentioned the number 83 the yellow and red EF Corsa Ferrari now they're on a different strategy again because they're down to their last 40% as here come the cars in the lead peeling in Alpine first of all they were on Vrantu will follow them for BMW number 15 and the Genesis Paul-Loup Chardin also on nothing oh no the BMW's gone through the BMW's gone through for one more lap that's interesting that's gonna be another two minutes that they'll get closer to the end of the race it's amazing it's amazing that we're seeing so much difference Kubica on but that can't be right because he's showing that on an outlap of only 36

Yeah, that's questionable.

The thing about Victor Martins and what Alpine were trying to do was be ahead of the 7 Toyota when it rejoined and they've just missed out there because they didn't give it full fuel.

It's down to 71 already.

So they've tried to short fuel it and put Victor Martins out front of Kamui Kobayashi.

And they were probably about two car lengths short because he's in right behind now.

Ryo Hirakawa, he was spot on in the number eight.

Toyota now goes quickest, and the seven Toyota has his fellow Japanese, Kamui Kobayashi.

and Mathieu Jaminet in the 19 Genesis Mathis Joubert in the 17 Genesis miss one of the Ferraris out of course that's the extra one the satellite team for Robert Kubica number 83 and then the Peugeots 94 is Malte Jakobsen and 93 is Stoffel van Doorn that's everybody as Sheldon van der Linden now goes quickest but we're concentrated remember on those seven cars that aren't going to get through into hyperpole

For a moment, we had Van and Van at the front, but now we've got Jam and Joe at the top in the three letter acronyms.

So Nielsen briefly went third.

and that drops him to fourth with the Giovinazzi time as well so he's 0.119 of a second quicker than Jack Aitken but surely Jack's got a bit more up his sleeve Jack is quicker through the first sector not necessarily quicker than the Ferrari no he's not but he's quicker than he's been to this point however the middle sector is almost two tenths down so I'd be surprised if this can be a full improvement and he's not going to be able to get around to start another lap at the end of this rio hirakawa flashes across the line that is an improvement to his time but not to position he'll stay fourth

uh i think he's just swapped sides of the i don't need i think he's gone up one row i think it was behind nicholas nielsen okay um so it's hard i mean it's tight though yes tight there take that and still waiting for Kamui Kobayashi who generally speaking is a demon qualifier time is about to run out as the Cadillac Hurts team of Jack Aitken goes across the line and goes to the top he will get one more lap everybody behind him JP will see the chequered flag wow so I it's exactly the same time it's exactly the same time as Tonio Giovinazzi so actually Giovinazzi will hold on a provisional ball yes because he did it first

that's not what it shows on the timing screen no but it is on various graphics elsewhere so yes Giovinazzi that's corrected now because he definitely did do it initially now what can Nick Nielsen do as up to fourth position will go the 36 Alpine of Victor Martins now he drops back to fifth because that was further improvement for Nicholas Nielsen in his Ferrari So 51 Ferrari of Giovinazzi quickest, having seen the chequered flag, Jack Aitken did not, and that could be crucial now, but it really depends how much more life is left in this medium set of Michelin tires for the British racer.