Toshio Suzuki (racing driver)

Toshio Suzuki

The Toyota GT-One driven by Suzuki at the 1999 24 Hours of Le Mans.
Born	(1955-03-10) 10 March 1955 (age 69)
Formula One World Championship career
Nationality	Japanese
Active years	1993
Teams	Larrousse
Entries	2
Championships	0
Wins	0
Podiums	0
Career points	0
Pole positions	0
Fastest laps	0
First entry	1993 Japanese Grand Prix
Last entry	1993 Australian Grand Prix
24 Hours of Le Mans career
Years	1985–1986, 1988–1990, 1993, 1995–1996, 1998–2000, 2008
Teams	Dome, Team LeMans, Tom's, NISMO, TV Asahi Team Dragon, Tōkai University YGK
Best finish	2nd (1999)
Class wins	1 (1999)
NASCAR Xfinity Series career
1 race run over 1 year
Best finish	96th (1996)
First race	1996 Meridian Advantage 200 (Nazareth Speedway)
Wins Top tens Poles 0 0 0

Toshio Suzuki (鈴木 利男, Suzuki Toshio, born 10 March 1955) is a former racing driver from Saitama Prefecture, Japan.

As a youth, Suzuki won the All-Japan Kart Championships in 1975 and 1976. In 1979, he took the title of the first All-Japan Formula Three Championship.

In 1992, he won the 24 Hours of Daytona with Kazuyoshi Hoshino and Masahiro Hasemi. In the same year, he was runner-up in the Japanese F3000 championship.

In 1993, he participated in two Formula One Grands Prix, standing in for Philippe Alliot at the Larrousse team. Though he scored no championship points, Suzuki finished both races.

Suzuki competed mainly in national championships, including the Japanese Formula 3000 Championship (later Formula Nippon), Japanese Touring Car Championship (JTCC) and All-Japan Grand Touring Car Championship (JGTC). He also participated into the 24 Hours of Le Mans. In 1996, he made a single start in the NASCAR Busch Series, driving for Joe Bessey at Nazareth Speedway; an accident during the race left him with a concussion.^[1]

In 2006, he became director of the R&D SPORT in Super GT to continue the team that Direxiv abandoned.

Most recently,^[when?] he worked for Nissan as a test driver to help in the development of the R35 Nissan GT-R.

Year	Team	Co-Drivers	Car	Class	Laps	Pos.	Class Pos.
1985	Dome Team	Eje Elgh Geoff Lees	Dome 85C-L-Toyota	C1	141	DNF	DNF
1986	Dome Co. Ltd.	Eje Elgh Beppe Gabbiani	Dome 86C-L-Toyota	C1	296	DNF	DNF
1988	Italiya Sport Team Le Mans	Michel Trollé Danny Ongais	March 88S-Nissan	C1	74	DNF	DNF
1989	Nissan Motorsports	Masahiro Hasemi Kazuyoshi Hoshino	Nissan R89C	C1	167	DNF	DNF
1990	Nissan Motorsports International	Masahiro Hasemi Kazuyoshi Hoshino	Nissan R90CP	C1	348	5th	5th
1993	Toyota Team Tom's	Eddie Irvine Masanori Sekiya	Toyota TS010	C1	364	4th	4th
1995	NISMO	Kazuyoshi Hoshino Masahiko Kageyama	Nissan Skyline GT-R LM	GT1	157	DNF	DNF
1996	NISMO	Kazuyoshi Hoshino Masahiro Hasemi	Nissan Skyline GT-R LM	GT1	307	15th	10th
1998	Toyota Motorsport Toyota Team Europe	Ukyo Katayama Keiichi Tsuchiya	Toyota GT-One	GT1	326	9th	8th
1999	Toyota Motorsport Toyota Team Europe	Ukyo Katayama Keiichi Tsuchiya	Toyota GT-One	LMGTP	364	2nd	1st
2000	TV Asahi Team Dragon	Masami Kageyama Masahiko Kageyama	Panoz LMP-1 Roadster-S-Élan	LMP900	340	6th	6th
2008	Tōkai University YGK Power	Haruki Kurosawa Masami Kageyama	Courage-Oreca LC70-YGK	LMP1	185	DNF	DNF

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap)

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

*The race at Fuji Speedway was cancelled due to a large crash on the first lap and heavy fog afterwards.

(key)

(key) (Bold – Pole position awarded by qualifying time. Italics – Pole position earned by points standings or practice time. * – Most laps led.)

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Toshio Suzuki (racing driver).

• Toshio Suzuki driver statistics at Racing-Reference
• Profile at grandprix.com