Why one of Japan's top drivers now faces a tough decision

When Sho Tsuboi won his first Super Formula title last year, the only surprise among those that have observed the Toyota driver throughout his career is that it didn’t come sooner.

Joining defending champion team TOM’S, Tsuboi won three times out of nine and established unrivalled consistency to take the crown in comfortable style. A month later, he replicated Ritomo Miyata’s ‘double’ from a year earlier as he secured his third championship in SUPER GT’s top GT500 class in the space of four years.

It’s a feat that leaves Tsuboi, already deemed the benchmark in GT500 of recent times, as the unquestioned top driver not just in the domestic Toyota stable but in Japan generally.

And now, Toyota’s tie-up with the Haas Formula 1 team has afforded Tsuboi the chance to sample grand prix machinery for the first time in his career as part of a TPC test arranged by the American team at Fuji Speedway for next month at the wheel of a Haas VF-23.

Such a chance will mark the realisation of a lifelong dream for the 30-year-old, who said he could only seriously think about F1 once he had conquered Super Formula.

“Until now, it really felt just like a pipe dream, and that I just had to focus on the thing that was right in front of me,” Tsuboi tells Autosport with regards to his F1 aspirations. “That meant my only goal was becoming Super Formula champion.

“Winning the championship allowed me to have a new goal beyond that, and the idea of having a chance in F1 as part of Toyota has become a big motivation for me, so I would like to aim for that.”

Tsuboi is due to realise a life-long dream when he samples Haas F1 car at Fuji next month

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

Despite his recent success, Tsuboi’s career hasn’t all been plain sailing. After scoring two wins for Inging in his second season of Super Formula in 2020, his form took something of a nosedive in the following years, and he didn't win a race again until he replaced Miyata at TOM’S as the 2023 champion moved on to Formula 2.

Even earlier in his career, it was far from certain whether Tsuboi would even make the grade at all. After two seasons racing as a Toyota junior in 2012-13 in Formula Challenge Japan, the forerunner to today’s F4 Japanese series, he was dropped due to poor results, beaten to the title in 2013 by a rookie called Kenta Yamashita – now his team-mate in GT500.

Tsuboi had to raise his own funds just to keep racing single-seaters in 2014, and it was only the next year, when he won the inaugural F4 Japanese title, that he cemented his place within Toyota. Even then, he found himself jumped in the queue by Yamashita, having to wait until 2019 to debut in Super Formula after a dominant All-Japan F3 title win in 2018.

Yamashita is considered by insiders to be a huge talent, but held back by a lack of technical knowledge, a slightly shy personality that can come across as being too laid back, and possibly a lack of ambition. Tsuboi on the other hand has generally taken slightly longer to get up to speed, but is fiercely intelligent, analytical, and has proven capable of relentless self-improvement.

“I need to make sure that last year wasn’t a one-off and win the Super Formula championship again this year, so that nobody can say I don’t deserve a chance” Sho Tsuboi

World Endurance Championship aficionados may recall that Yamashita did get a chance to race overseas, in the LMP2 class in 2019-20, and looked to be on the fast track to a seat in the Toyota Hypercar stable. But instead of seizing the chance, he decided to return to Japan in 2021, which opened the door to now-Le Mans 24 Hours winner Ryo Hirakawa to get the seat instead.

The big question is, having reached his 30th birthday, will Tsuboi turn out to be a Yamashita, content to stay in Japan, or a Hirakawa, keen to spread his wings overseas?

Keen to learn more about F1, Tsuboi was an interested spectator in the Haas garage at this year’s Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka, just weeks after the Super Formula opener at the same track, and said he was taken aback by the sheer number of fans present as well as the resources available even to teams at the lower end of the F1 grid.

Tsuboi was surprised by the number of people involved in F1 teams, in contrast to Super Formula

Photo by: Masahide Kamio

“It was great seeing things up close like that,” he says of the experience. “The whole event is just on a totally different scale. Even within the team you can see how many computers they use, how many people are working on the cars, the amount of data they are working with.

“In terms of the actual way of working through a session, it didn’t feel completely alien from what we do in Japan, but the number of people involved is far and beyond what we have.”

But, as much as F1 clearly appeals to Tsuboi, his age and lack of experience overseas means it’s hard to picture anything more than odd runs in Haas machinery beyond next month’s Fuji outing. Unless, that is, Tsuboi was to impress so much that he displaced Hirakawa, who will also join the Fuji test, on the pecking order of Toyota F1 hopefuls.

Tsuboi admits his English is still a work in progress (this particular interview was conducted in Japanese), and also knows time is not on his side. “Age is a factor, so it’s not something I can take slowly and I think, if a chance comes, it will probably be the last one,” he said prior to confirmation of the Fuji TPC outing. “So if and when the chance comes, I’ll need to intensify my preparations.

“But I also need to make sure that last year wasn’t a one-off and win the Super Formula championship again this year, so that nobody can say I don’t deserve a chance. So I also need to keep my feet on the ground and focus on both things at the same time.”

Even if F1 feels like a stretch, being part of Toyota’s future plans in WEC and at Le Mans is certainly achievable. Tsuboi has the speed, and Hirakawa has proven SUPER GT is just about as good a place to learn the ropes of multi-class sportscar racing as any other.

“I’ve been following WEC for a long time as Toyota is involved, but more than WEC itself I would say the Le Mans 24 Hours appeals to me as it is one of the biggest races in the world,” says Tsuboi when asked if the WEC could provide an alternative path for him. “So that’s a race I’d like to try competing in at least once.”

Fellow Super Formula champion Miyata's tough F2 season shows the pitfalls of leaving Japan

Photo by: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Tsuboi also says that Miyata’s struggles in F2 have no impact on his thinking – although, in any case, it’s hard to imagine Toyota repeating that particular experiment with a driver who hasn’t already gained experience further down the European single-seater ladder.

“As I am not attending his races, I don’t really know what is the cause of Miyata’s struggles, and it’s difficult for me to speculate,” says Tsuboi. “That said, for any Japanese driver, the amount of free practice time [in F2] is very short and we don’t know the circuits, and we don’t get many tests either. So it definitely looks difficult.

“It’s hard for me to tell where the fault lies, but I know from racing him in Japan that Miyata is not a slow driver, so I am sure he is going to improve as time goes on.”

However, even if he stays in Japan for the foreseeable future, Tsuboi won’t be short of motivation. As well as his ongoing quest to defend his Super Formula title, he is also firmly on course to make it four titles in SUPER GT this year, a feat that would put him equal with the current record-holder, the now-retired Ronnie Quintarelli.

“If I stay in Japan, I don’t want to just race ‘aimlessly’ without any real targets. So if I stay in Japan, then the goal is to win five titles in SUPER GT” Sho Tsuboi

“Having won three titles in SUPER GT aged 30, I think there’s a chance to make some history, to show some proof that I’m the best there has been in Japan,” Tsuboi says.

“If I stay in Japan, I don’t want to just race ‘aimlessly’ without any real targets. If there’s no chance to race overseas, I wouldn’t say it’s the end of the world. So if I stay in Japan, then the goal is to win five titles in SUPER GT.”

Such comments have to beg the question: while he is conquering all in Japan and happily living with wife Aimi Saito, a successful racing driver in her own right, is Tsuboi prepared to give up his current position for anything other than a shot at F1 that still feels very unlikely?

The answer could ultimately define whether he becomes Toyota’s latest homegrown overseas star, or if he ends up cementing his status as the undisputed number one in Japan.

Will Tsuboi decide it's best to stick to what he knows and pursue more SUPER GT success?

Photo by: Masahide Kamio