When home hero Kamui Kobayashi scored a podium at the 2012 Japanese GP
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Kamui Kobayashi on the podium with Sebastian Vettel at the 2012 F1 Japanese GP
The Japanese GP weekend will commence tomorrow after taking a hiatus of 2 years due to COVID. A ton of historical events have taken place at the Suzuka circuit and a lot more of them will. For now, let us take a look at Kamui Kobayashi’s dream finish in Japan that led to the driver scoring his first ever podium finish at his home race whilst racing for Sauber at the time.
The Japanese driver managed to achieve this feat when he was 26 years old. Scoring your first podium in F1 is an unreal feeling, I’m told but doing it at your home race in front of your fans has to be a much better feeling. Having qualified P3, Kamui Kobayashi managed to get a brilliant start and kept his cool during the whole race. However, the pressure started to rise when Jenson Button started to close up to him.
The Japanese driver went on to put on a great show for his fans as he brought home Sauber’s 27th podium and the team’s fourth podium this season. Kamui Kobayashi went on to state that the long run that he did on Friday practice gave him the much-required confidence to pull through and achieve his first ever podium finish. Here is what the Japanese driver had to say about this magical feat.
“It hasn’t sunk in yet,” Kamui Kobayashi on achieving his first ever F1 podium finish
He further went on to express his emotions in an interview. “It hasn’t sunk in yet, it is hard to believe – I achieved my first podium in Suzuka! It was a fantastic race and we have been working really hard to get to this point since we were lacking pace on Friday. But the Sauber F1 Team did a great job to recover from there,“he said.
“Starting from third obviously helped a lot and also the long run I did on Friday made me very confident for the race. The team has built a great car this year. You can tell this from the podium finishes my team-mate has had. At times I was close to that as well but I never had the luck. It means so much to me that it finally worked out. Maybe from now on things will be easier. I had a very long last stint today and Jenson (Button) changed for fresh tyres later,” he continued.
“My rear tyres where really bad in the end and I had a lot of oversteer. But regardless of this I had to push to defend my podium place. Only during the final lap did I allow myself to really think I can keep him behind me, because then the best overtaking opportunity at the end of the straight was over, and then I saw all the fans and the raised hands. It meant a lot to me and I want to thank the Japanese fans,” he concluded.
With this year’s Japanese GP taking place over the weekend, there will be another Japanese driver on the grid starting the race and it’s none other than Yuki Tsunoda. It’s hard to judge whether the driver will be able to pull off what Kamui Kobayashi did but it is safe to say that anything can happen. A title-deciding race lies upon us. Will we get to see a Max Verstappen masterclass or will we see Charles Leclerc deny him the championship at Honda’s home race?
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Varad Joshi
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