Takaaki Nakagami

Takaaki Nakagami (中上貴晶, Nakagami Takaaki, born February 9, 1992) is a Moto2 world championship rider from Japan, who rides for Idemitsu Honda Team Asia.

Career

Early career

Born in Chiba, Nakagami joined the Japanese Road Race Championship in the GP125 category in 2005 joining the Harc-Pro Honda Team finishing 13th as a rookie in the series. He stayed in the Japanese GP125 championship for 2006 with Harc-Pro again, winning every race of the season; becoming the youngest ever Japanese GP125 champion. Also in 2006, Nakagami also joined the MotoGP Academy which gave him the chance to compete overseas for the first time in the CEV (Spanish) 125GP series, Nakagami finished in 12th position in the championship. His best result came in the second round at Jerez finishing in 5th place.

He decided to focus on the CEV 125GP championship in 2007 with the MotoGP academy, Nakagami's results improved in 2007 and he finished in 6th place overall with a 3rd-place finish at Valencia his best result. Nakagami also received his first 125cc World Championship wildcard entry at the final round of the season in Valencia qualifying in 20th position but failing to finish the race.

He impressed enough to secure a full-time ride in the 125cc World Championship on 2008 joining the Italian I.C. Team riding an Aprilia, he finished the season in 24th overall with a best finish 8th place at Donington Park. For 2009, Nakagami joined another Italian team called Ongetta I.S.P.A. Aprilia he improved his overall performance finishing 16th overall with a best results of two 5th places at a wet Le Mans and Donington Park.

Despite having offers to remain in the 125cc championship in 2010, Nakagami decided to return to Japan and re join the Harc-Pro team, competing the Japanese ST600 championship aboard a Honda, Nakagami won the first race of the season at Tsukuba. He went on to finish 8th overall. He remained with Harc-Pro in 2012 but changed classes and entered the J-GP2 class aboard a Honda HP6, Nakagami won 5 of the 6 races during the season and the championship despite not competing in the Okayama round due to injuries sustained when he was substituting at the Motegi Moto2 World Championship round for the Italtrans Racing Team.

Moto2 World Championship

Nakagami did enough during his substitute display to earn a full-time ride for the Italtrans Racing Team in the Moto2 World Championship riding a Kalex with a Honda CBR600 engine, finishing his rookie season 15th in the standings with a best result of 5th at Jerez. For 2013, Nakagami remains in Moto2 with Italtrans aboard a Kalex, at the opening round at Losail, Nakagami achieved his first podium in Grand Prix racing with a 3rd-place finish. At Le Mans, Nakagami earned his first pole position in Grand Prix racing. Nakagami achieved his second career Grand Prix podium with a second-place finish behind Esteve Rabat at Indianapolis, he led most of the race but was passed in the closing laps and finished less than a second from victory. He took his second pole of the season at the Czech Grand Prix, at Brno; he went on to take his second successive second-place finish, behind Mika Kallio. He once again took pole at the British Grand Prix at Silverstone and again finished second, this time behind Championship leader and home rider Scott Redding. At Misano, Nakagami finished second for the fourth race in a row; he led the majority of the race before he was passed by Pol Espargaró in the closing laps. He finished the season 8th overall. For 2014 he signed to ride for Tadayuki Okada's team, Idemitsu Honda Team Asia. A positive start to the season with a second-place finish at Qatar was denied as he was disqualified for technical reasons. Nakagami struggled for the rest of the year with bike set up and finished the season down in 22nd position. Despite the struggles of 2014, Nakagami remained with Honda Team Asia for 2015.

Career statistics

By seasons and teams

Season	Class	Team	Motorcycle	Type	Races	Podiums	Poles	Pts	Position
2007	125cc	MotoGP Academy	Honda	Honda RS125R	1	0	0	0	NC
2008	125cc	I.C. Team	Aprilia	Aprilia RS125	17	0	0	12	24th
2009	125cc	Ongetta Team I.S.P.A.	Aprilia	Aprilia RS125	16	0	0	43	16th
2011	Moto2	Italtrans Racing Team	Suter	Suter MMXI	0	0	0	0	NC
2012	Moto2	Italtrans Racing Team	Kalex	Kalex Moto2	17	0	0	57	15th
2013	Moto2	Italtrans Racing Team	Kalex	Kalex Moto2	16	5	3	149	8th
2014	Moto2	Idemitsu Honda Team Asia	Kalex	Kalex Moto2	18	0	0	34	22nd
2015	Moto2	Idemitsu Honda Team Asia	Kalex	Kalex Moto2	18	1	0	100	8th

Races by year

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

Yr	Class	Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	Pos	Pts
2007	125cc	Honda	QAT	SPA	TUR	CHN	FRA	ITA	CAT	GBR	NED	GER	CZE	SMR	POR	JPN	AUS	MAL	VAL Ret		NC	0
2008	125cc	Aprilia	QAT 19	SPA 15	POR 19	CHN Ret	FRA 16	ITA 16	CAT 22	GBR 8	NED Ret	GER 18	CZE Ret	RSM 19	IND Ret	JPN 13	AUS Ret	MAL Ret	VAL 16		24th	12
2009	125cc	Aprilia	QAT 20	JPN 20	SPA 16	FRA 5	ITA 15	CAT 15	NED 17	GER Ret	GBR 5	CZE 19	IND 9	RSM 20	POR 11	AUS 18	MAL 11	VAL 14			16th	43
2011	Moto2	Suter	QAT	SPA	POR	FRA	CAT	GBR	NED	ITA	GER	CZE	IND	RSM	ARA	JPN DNS	AUS	MAL	VAL		NC	0
2012	Moto2	Kalex	QAT 14	SPA 5	POR 18	FRA Ret	CAT 6	GBR 19	NED 12	GER 19	ITA 7	IND 16	CZE 17	RSM 11	ARA 29	JPN 7	MAL Ret	AUS 9	VAL Ret		15th	57
2013	Moto2	Kalex	QAT 3	AME Ret	SPA 4	FRA Ret	ITA Ret	CAT 5	NED DNS	GER 10	IND 2	CZE 2	GBR 2	RSM 2	ARA 11	MAL 8	AUS 22	JPN 9	VAL 13		8th	149
2014	Moto2	Kalex	QAT DSQ	AME 11	ARG 15	SPA Ret	FRA 16	ITA 16	CAT 13	NED 14	GER 21	IND 11	CZE 19	GBR 15	RSM 10	ARA 15	JPN 13	AUS 11	MAL Ret	VAL 14	22nd	34
2015	Moto2	Kalex	QAT 14	AME 10	ARG 20	SPA 17	FRA 7	ITA 13	CAT 20	NED 13	GER 7	IND 9	CZE 12	GBR 14	RSM 3	ARA 8	JPN 22	AUS 4	MAL 4	VAL 11	8th	100
2016	Moto2	Kalex	QAT 14	ARG 9	AME 15	SPA	FRA	ITA	CAT	NED	GER	AUT	CZE	GBR	RSM	ARA	JPN	AUS	MAL	VAL	14th*	10*

References

Nakagami's official MotoGP profile

External links

Official website

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