Kazuki Nakajima is still casting a wry eye on the GP2 Series title as he heads into the final third of the season, the Japanese driver proving very much the driver on form having scored five straight podiums.
Although he is yet to taste the winner's champagne this season, Nakajima's slow start to the year has given way to a brace of podium results between
Silverstone and Hungaroring, surging him up the leaderboard to fourth position.
While that still places him 22 points off the championship leaders, it is worth noting the Japanese driver has scored 28 of his current 33 points in the last three meetings. It is a run of form that has given the DAMS driver confidence he can still be a feature for the title with four meetings remaining.
Still, with
Timo Glock and Lucas di Grassi out front, Nakajima claims he will consider his season as a success if he can grab third position in the standings, something he is already just two points away from achieving.
“The target is to win the championship, as every driver is thinking, but realistically I think I can challenge for third place because I am only a few points behind,” he told
Bridgestone's latest
Racing all over the World GP2
podcast recently. “My first job is to get up into third place and then I will see if I can challenge for the championship, but if not then I can still be pleased with my first year if I am in the top three.”
The son of former
F1 driver Satoru Nakajima, Kazuki is currently classed as the front running rookie in the championship too, but despite his inexperience he has not taken long to adapt from the Formula 3 Euroseries. Indeed, while the results were not forthcoming in the first few events, a fastest lap in the first race of the season at Bahrain signalled his immediate potential.
“We always had strong qualifying and race pace but we couldn't get the results in the first race, either through my mistakes or through some bad luck, so we needed everything to go right for us to get the right results and we have shown that in the last few races.”
