Kobayashi on earning his place in Formula 1

Kamui Kobayashi has joked about how he was destined to spend 2010 working in his father's sushi restaurant. It's a snappy line, but more likely he would have slipped into the lucrative Japanese domestic racing scene in Formula Nippon and Super GT. Either way, he was all washed up one year in Europe one year ago.

Even Toyota had lost much of its faith in him in the wake of a dismal GP2 campaign during which he netted only one, reversed grid, podium finish. After ending the season 16th in the standings, a third Toyota-backed campaign in the F1 feeder series was a long-shot and he was unlikely even to retain his reserve driver role with the Japanese manufacturer's grand prix team.

Yet today, he is established as a bone fide Formula 1 driver, scoring 22 points in his first 15 starts. To turn around a career that had stalled, seemingly irreversibly, in the GP2 midfield after two poor seasons in Europe is a remarkable achievement. It's hard to think of a driver who has performed so incredible a Lazarus act in recent years. And he has Timo Glock - himself something of an F1 comeback kid - to thank for the opportunity.

When the German ploughed into the wall on the run to start/finish during qualifying for last year's Japanese Grand Prix, Kobayashi's window of opportunity, which by then seemed not only to have been bolted shut but also bricked up and painted over, reopened. Ballast located in the nose of the Toyota had become dislodged and gashed Glock's left leg and subsequent scans showed a back injury - possibly an old injury that had been agitated - that left the German on the sidelines for Brazil and Abu Dhabi. Enter Kobayashi.

Despite raised eyebrows around the F1 world, there was never any question that Kobayashi would get the nod to fill in. He at least had some mileage in the TF109, completing 155 laps, much of it in damp conditions, during pre-season testing and in Friday practice for the Japanese Grand Prix but few expected him to be far off the bottom of the timesheets at Interlagos. After finishing ninth from 11th on the grid in Brazil, he claimed his maiden points finish with sixth place - ahead of team-mate Jarno Trulli - in Abu Dhabi.

"It's a real surprise," says Kobayashi of his current situation. "Just 12 months ago, I didn't expect things to happen like this because my results were really bad in GP2. To get into the Toyota for Brazil and Abu Dhabi was a turning point.

"For me, an F1 car is much easier to drive and feels much more familiar. I can't say why, but I think F1 is for me."

There's no question about that. In 40 GP2 starts he won just once - in the reverse-grid sprint race at Barcelona in 2008. Although he won the GP2 Asia title in 2008/9, using the first-generation chassis and against patchy, but worthy, opposition, things just never went right in Europe. A champion in both the Formula Renault Eurocup and the very competitive Italian series in 2005, and a race winner in F3 Euro Series in 2007, just what did go wrong in GP2?

"I have no idea," says Kobayashi. "In the tests I was setting good times and there were days when I had the best time. I was very confident for the 2009 after winning GP2 Asia but once we went to Barcelona for the first race we had some problems with the engine and I had no free practice. Then I was two seconds off in qualifying.

"I do not know why [GP2 went so badly]. It was like this all year."

Toyota was losing faith in its protege. Suspicions that his DAMS-run machine might have some underlying problem were tested by the manufacturer - his car was apparently put on one of Toyota F1's dynamic rigs to check all was well - but no problems ever surfaced.

Perhaps it's best just to put Kobayashi's GP2 failure down to circumstances, as those who had paid attention to the rest of his career knew that previous form suggest that he was better than a lower midfielder at that level.

Not that it matters anymore. Those two races at the end of 2009 were a game-changer for the Japanese.

"It was a very tough situation," said Kobayashi of being thrown in at the deep end in Brazil. "The track conditions were always changing and it was very hard. But I have always had good confidence in F1 cars. The only problem was that in the eight months since I had driven the car [over a lot of laps, as he managed only 23 in practice in Japan] there were a lot of updates. It was a different car to the one that I drove in February.

"That worried me, but otherwise I was very confident. Pace-wise, it was not so good but I knew that I could improve using the experience if I had another opportunity. When I got to Abu Dhabi, I could improve and the result was good, but still I made a few mistakes."

That's a pretty modest assessment of two very impressive weekends of work. Toyota had already decided to put Kobayashi into a full-time race seat for 2010 when the sound of the rug being yanked from underneath its F1 programme echoed in Japan. Kobayashi was left without a seat and his two outings could have become more a last hurrah than the start of something big.

But as one door closed, another on opened. Enter Peter Sauber, who was in the process of reclaiming control of his eponymous team following BMW's withdrawal. Toyota's departure opened a grid slot, and it didn't take him long to sign Kobayashi.

The cigar-smoking Swiss's reputation for conservatism is well earned when applied to running a racing team, but he's always had an eye for gambling on a driver. The logic went that Kimi Raikkonen was signed for 2001 on the strength of one test - out of Formula Renault - whereas Kobayashi already had two impressive F1 performances under his belt.

"Normally, when you are interested in a young driver you test him," says Sauber. "For me, what Kamui showed in two races last year was much more valuable and representative than doing a test.

"On the one hand, it was clear that he had a lack of experience, but on the other he showed a very sound, clever aggression. He didn't do stupid things, but he was being aggressive.

"Japanese drivers are always under a particular pressure, more than other drivers. As a Japanese driver at Toyota, this meant a lot of pressure which he handled well.

"In the end, you have to make your decision and it was based on a gut feeling. We cannot afford drivers who are at the top, but even if we had a higher budget, I might still tend to have one young driver because it is fun to work with them."

The plan was to run one old hand, which proved to be Pedro de la Rosa, alongside a rookie. Kobayashi was the man, and signed on the dotted line in December. It proved to be a very shrewd decision from Sauber.

"This was a very good chance for me," says Kobayashi. "I decided to drive for this team because Peter Sauber has good experience of working with rookie drivers and I wanted to be one of those too. If I get good results, he's happy and I am happy.

"I'm also very happy to be team-mate to Pedro. I can learn things from him and we work very well and very hard together. You can seem that the team is going well and more points finishes is the target."

After a troubled start to the season, during which Kobayashi managed a grand total of 19 racing laps in his first four races, his fortunes have improved with the team's.

A first finish in Spain - after a clash with Robert Kubica on lap one that cost a potential top 10 result - got the ball rolling and was followed up with a first point of the season in Turkey three weeks later. After staying out under the safety car in Valencia and running
third for much of the race, Kobayashi pitted with four laps to go and then scythed past Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Buemi for an impressive seventh place.

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Two weeks after that, he finished a remarkable sixth in the British Grand Prix. But arguably his most impressive drive came in Hungary. Kobayashi struggled at the Hungaroring throughout practice, in many ways it was one of his weakest weekends, and when he was then punted to the back row for missing the weighbridge all seemed lost.

There are plenty on the grid who would let their head drop and plod around to finish in the lower-midfield. But not Kobayashi. He passed seven cars on the opening lap to lay the foundations for a ninth place finish - a result he repeated from the lower reaches of the grid after a qualifying off at Spa.

On both occasions, a great racing performance had salvaged something from a tricky weekend and a big change from the travails of the early stages of the season, when the team was rocked by being unable to replicate its testing form on grand prix weekends.

"At the beginning of the season I had poor mileage," says Kobayashi. "I had no action in the first four races and it was very tough to build experience and feel the tyres. But once we finished in Barcelona and Turkey I got used to the car and had the experience to relax more in the races. It just became much easier.

"The most difficult part early in the year was the motivation of the team. I was worried, but once we started to improve and the team started to improve it was much better.

"We have a good level of performance now. With the situation of the team from last year, it's no surprise that it was difficult to use all of the potential early in the season, especially with the reliability. We had no problems in practice or testing, but things always went
wrong. Now, we are happy and have a good opportunity to score more points during the rest of the season."

And based on his form so far, Kobayashi has the right mindset to take those opportunities. National stereotypes are a very dangerous thing, and when it comes to Japanese drivers, European motorsport is notorious for applying broad brush strokes to anyone hailing from that region. But the never say die attitude does seem to be shared by many Japanese pilots - there's a little of the Takuma Sato about Kobayashi. His battles with world champion Jenson Button in his Toyota outings last year proved that.

"It isn't a surprise to me," says Kobayashi of his overtaking prowess in a category in which it is famously difficult to pass. "It's definitely very difficult to overtake and I don't know why I have the chances to do so. But once I do, I have to overtake!"

Just like Sato's famous pass on Fernando Alonso at Montreal in 2007. Logic said that a Super Aguri shouldn't be passing a McLaren, and many drivers would have talked themselves out of it, but Sato saw that the car was there to be overtaken. Just like Kobayashi. As one paddock
insider, with plenty of experience of the Japanese, put it "that's part of the Japanese mindset. The job is to race and overtake people and he won't let other thoughts get in the way of doing that."

Which inevitably begs the question, is Kobayashi going to be the man who delivers his country's first world championship race victory. Ever since Satoru Nakajima became F1's first regular world championship racer in 1987, Japan has expected. To date, only twice has a Japanese driver stood on the podium - Aguri Suzuki on home soil for Larousse in 1990 and Sato for BAR-Honda at Indianapolis in 2004 - so does Kamui feeling the pressure to deliver that Sauber talks about.

"I have no pressure," he said. "I just do my job and try to do my best and I cannot say that I will win. But if I work hard and improve more then it is possible to win.

"Definitely F1 is getting better in Japan. For a long time, there were a lot of Japanese manufacturers in F1 and they bought a lot of tickets to give to people in their company or sponsors. Now, there are no Japanese manufacturers - only Bridgestone - but tickets are still
going well and the TV numbers are getting better. This is my job - to make F1 more popular in Japan.

"I don't think you can have the same perception of all Japanese drivers. But my racing career has been almost all spent in Europe - I had only one year in Japan - so maybe my case is a little bit different."

Although Sauber is holding fire on deciding its 2011 driver line-up for now, largely because there is no great rush with the top seats already taken, Kobayashi has surely done enough to merit being retained. If not, it's hard to see that he won't be picked up by another team.

"For next year, I can't say anything at the moment," he says. But one thing that we can say is that he has definitely proved his right to be here and might just be on the path to becoming Japan's first race winner.

Not bad for a man whose F1 career was over before it had even started a year ago. Formula Nippon's loss is grand prix racing's gain.