1,000 Greatest Drivers: Satoshi Motoyama
The Matt Kenseth of Japan.
Okay, he was better than Kenseth probably, but I was referring to the fact that he had a very similar moment to Matt Kenseth’s viral Martinsville moment. The three big differences were that: 1) Motoyama used his intentional retaliation and near ban from racing as a launchpad to his future dominance, while that basically marked the end of Kenseth’s serious relevance; 2) Motoyama did not succeed in causing Osamu Nakako to lose the title, while Kenseth did succeed in eliminating Joey Logano (of course, the Japanese Touring Car Championship didn’t have a stupid win & in championship format), 3) intentional contact was even less acceptable internationally than in the United States. I cannot imagine anyone in the Land of the Rising Sun uttering the phrase, “boys, have at it”. I’m betting a big part of this scandal came down to the fact that Michael Schumacher got disqualified from the championship for intentionally wrecking Jacques Villeneuve in the F1 season finale at Jerez only a week before, and the reaction to Motoyama was probably in part an ugly response to that aftermath. But he survived and thrived and overcame it and even he and Nakako buried the hatchet and became friends again.
Skipped out of bar trivia today both to do this and some of my paid work and still spent hours doing nothing and didn’t get it done for his birthday (well, it still is his birthday on the West Coast). My motivation is dragging, but I’m really cranking these out now. The escrow for my home equity line of credit just went up $300 from $587 to $886. That was a nasty blow. Apparently half of that was an increase in the school tax but I don’t know what the rest of it was. I can’t wait to get rid of the house and live in an apartment again, to be honest, but I’m certainly not doing that until I am forced to give it up due to Medicaid estate recovery after my mom’s death. I can still cover this as long as I maintain my current work, but when the month when I shut off charges wraps up (I think it’s around March 10), I’m definitely going to start charging again. When I do that, I think I’m going to leave most of the obscure drivers as free posts and only charge for the famous ones for the most part, but I might change my mind on that.
Still playing phone tag with the person who’s hiring a contractor to construct a ramp so hopefully Mom will be able to come home. Looking forward to my first counseling session in eons tomorrow as well as my first meeting with the neurodivergent support group next Wednesday.
SATOSHI MOTOYAMA………….JAPAN
Born: March 4, 1971
Best year: 2003
Best drive: 2011 Super GT Race #7 at Autopolis
A prolific winner in both Japanese open wheel and sports cars, Motoyama debuted in the Japanese Touring Car Championship in 1995, then began racing in both the All-Japan Grand Touring Car Championship (now Super GT) and Formula Nippon (now Super Formula) in 1996. He broke out in 1997 when he beat teammate and Japanese goat Kazuyoshi Hoshino 7-2 in JTCC. However, while trailing Osamu Nakako by seven points for the championship, Nakako accidentally spun Motoyama in the final race at Fuji before Motoyama drove slowly until Nakako came back around, at which point Motoyama wrecked him into a tire barrier. Nakako still won the title while Motoyama was fined 500,000 yen, suspended from all future races that season, and having his license permanently revoked was discussed.
Nearly being banned lit a fire under him as he overwhelmingly dominated both Formula Nippon and to a lesser extent the AJGTC/Super GT for the next decade. From 1998-2009, Motoyama won at least one race in either series every season and multiple races all but once. He won his first Formula Nippon title in 1998 for Team Le Mans, then three more in 2001, 2003, and 2005 for Hoshino’s Impul team. His winningest season came in 2002 when he won five times, but he finished two points behind four-time winner Ralph Firman.
In Super GT, Motoyama won three titles with different co-drivers, Michael Krumm in 2003, Richard Lyons in 2004, and Benoît Tréluyer in 2008, all for the factory Nissan team NISMO. The 2003 sweep made him only the second driver to do that after Pedra de la Rosa in 1997. After quitting Formula Nippon following the 2008 season, he had the drive of his life in Super GT where he needed to win to keep his 2011 title chances alive, Motoyama drove from 12th to take the lead in 26 laps at the penultimate race at Autopolis. He and Tréluyer then won the finale as well, but they still lost the title. However, Motoyama fell off quickly when Tréluyer switched to the World Endurance Championship for 2012 and only won once in his final eight seasons.
Motoyama is pretty inarguably top five all-time in both “super” disciplines. His four proto-Super Formula titles rank third behind only Hoshino’s six and Satoru Nakajima’s five, while his 27 wins rank second to Hoshino’s 39. In Super GT, his 16 wins rank fourth all-time while his three titles rank tied for third behind only Ronnie Quintarelli and Sho Tsuboi’s four. He too would’ve won a fourth title in 1999 with Érik Comas had he not missed a race to prepare for an unsuccessful 24 Hours of Le Mans entry. The only thing he lacked was major success outside Japan. After his 2003 sweep, he tested for Renault and Jordan’s F1 teams and he was only two seconds off Fernando Alonso’s time, but lacking financial backing and already in his thirties, the F1 interest wasn’t really serious. None of that takes away from his legendary status in Japan.
Open wheel model: #205 of 931 (.103)
Teammate head-to-heads: 33-15 (2-1 vs. Norberto Fontana, 3-0 vs. Kazuki Hoshino, 6-1 vs. Hiroaki Ishiura, 2-6 vs. Katsutomo Kaneishi, 5-1 vs. Toshihiro Kaneishi, 2-1 vs. Narain Karthikeyan, 5-1 vs. Michael Krumm, 0-1 vs. Sena Sakaguchi, 4-3 vs. Benoit Treluyer, 1-0 vs. Sakon Yamamoto, 3-0 vs. Koji Yamanishi)
Touring car model: #696 of 1676 (-.012)
Teammate head-to-heads: 10-7 (7-2 vs. Kazuyoshi Hoshino, 3-5 vs. Masahiro Kageyama)
Year-by-year: 1997: C+, 1998: E-, 1999: E-, 2000: C, 2001: E, 2002: E, 2003: E, 2004: C+, 2005: E-, 2006: C-, 2007: C+, 2008: C+, 2009: C+, 2011: E-