Nirei Fukuzumi

Fukuzumi comes from a rather unusual background for a racing driver; his father Shūhō is the chief priest of Sanbōin, a Shingon Buddhist temple in his hometown of Ishii.^[1]

Summarize Timeline Fact Check

Fukuzumi drove a kart for the first time at the age of 5 and began his karting career in 2006. He remained in karting until 2013, finishing second to Ukyo Sasahara in the All-Japan Junior Karting Championship in 2009 and concluding his career by taking the All-Japan Karting Championship title in the top-level KF1 class in 2013.^[2] He also made a handful of appearances internationally, most notably finishing second in the ROK Cup International Final in 2012.

In 2014, Fukuzumi began to compete in open-wheel racing, moving up to Japanese F3 the next year. He won four races and finished fourth in the standings.

In 2016, Nirei débuted in the GP3 Series with ART Grand Prix,^[3] scoring three podium finishes and finishing seventh in the championship. Fukuzumi stayed on for another season of GP3 in 2017.^[4] He racked up two victories, both coming at feature races, and ended up third in the standings, only behind teammates George Russell and Jack Aitken. In 2017, he was part of McLaren Young Driver Programme as he's part of Honda Junior Program.

Fukuzumi made his Formula 2 debut in 2018 with BWT Arden,^[5] partnering Maximilian Günther. In that season, he managed to join Red Bull Junior Team. Fukuzumi scored a total of 17 points, finishing 17th, three positions behind Günther in the championship. After this unfortunate season, Red Bull dropped him from the Academy.

While the main focus was to race in Formula 2 for 2018, Fukuzumi competed in Super Formula with Team Mugen for four rounds.^[5] After three seasons in Europe, Fukuzumi returned to Japan, and competed in Super Formula with Dandelion Racing.^[6] Fukuzumi had his best season by far, managed to claim runners up in the standings for Super Formula with two wins & one pole to his name in that season. For 2022, Fukuzumi moves from Front runner Dandelion Racing to Drago Corse for Super Formula, while for Super GT stays with ARTA.^[7] In 2023, Fukuzumi continues to stay at ThreeBond Racing. Fukuzumi continues to do well in Threebond where collecting couple of points, and qualiflying to Q2 very often, with 16th place.

Fukuzumi left Honda after being contracted by the manufacturer since his junior years, to join Toyota and drive the No. 8 entry for KCMG alongside Kamui Kobayashi.^[8]

Fukuzumi make his Super GT debut in GT300 Class with ARTA as Shinichi Takagi's teammate.^[6] In that season, he managed to claim the Super GT GT300 Title, while in Super Formula full debut managed to get seventh place in the standings.

In 2020, Fukuzumi stayed with the same team but promoted to GT500 class in Super GT with Tomoki Nojiri as his teammate. For 2021, he stayed with the same team in both series. And in 2021 with one win and he and Nojiri Fukuzumi finished second in the points. Fukuzumi continued to compete in Super GT with ARTA, but this time he moved to the new 16 car after ARTA work together with Mugen Team, where he was paired with Hiroki Otsu.^[9][10] Meanwhile Fukuzumi, and Otsu claimed their car number 16 its maiden win, alongside three podiums, and a pole position. Both of them initially fought for the title, but fell short where they finished outside the top-three, and ended up in fourth place.

After he left Honda, Fukuzumi would drive for TGR Team Eneos ROOKIE alongside 2019 GT500 champion, Kazuya Oshima.^[8]

Season	Series	Team	Position
2010	Rotax Max Challenge Grand Finals — Junior		30th
2011	ROK Cup International Final — Junior ROK		5th
	Rotax Max Challenge Grand Finals — Junior	Eiko Japan	5th
2012	ROK Cup International Final — Junior ROK		2nd
	CIK-FIA European Championship — KF2	Kosmic Racing Dept	16th
	CIK-FIA World Cup — KF2		21st
	CIK-FIA Asia Pacific Championship — KF2		5th
2013	CIK-FIA World Championship — KF2		33rd