Shuhei Nakamoto (, ''Nakamoto Shūhei''; born 29 April 1957) is the vice-president of

Honda Racing Corporation Honda Racing Corporation (HRC) is a division of the Honda, Honda Motor Company formed in 1982. The company combines participation in Motorcycle racing, motorcycle races throughout the world with the development of racing machines. Its racing act ...

Career

Nakamoto joined the

in 1983 and his initial work was based around the corporation's

motorcycle racing Motorcycle racing (also called moto racing and motorbike racing) is the motorcycle sport of racing motorcycles. Major varieties include motorcycle road racing and off-road racing, both either on circuits or open courses, and track racing. Ot ...

operations at

(HRC). By 1984, Nakamoto was already project leader on the design of the Honda RS125 and RS250 production racing machines. By 1990 he had been moved up to the role of large project leader on both these machines. Nakamoto continued to work with motorcycles, but moved to the Honda F1 project in 2000. He gained multiple promotions up until 2002 when he became the race and test team manager for Honda Racing Developments Ltd. (HRD). Another promotion in 2003 led to him becoming engineering director for Honda Racing Developments Ltd., and he stayed in this role until 2006. During 2006, Nakamoto got his big break being appointed the Senior Technical Director for the Honda F1 team, taking over from

Geoff Willis Geoffrey Willis (born 23 December 1959) is a British engineer and the Director of Commercial Engineering at the Mercedes Formula One team. He was also the Technical Director of Red Bull Racing team from 2007 to 2009 and Technical Director of H ...

, an

aerodynamics Aerodynamics, from grc, ἀήρ ''aero'' (air) + grc, δυναμική (dynamics), is the study of the motion of air, particularly when affected by a solid object, such as an airplane wing. It involves topics covered in the field of fluid dyn ...

specialist. Rubens Barrichello 2007

The

Honda RA107 The Honda RA107 is a Formula One racing car with which Honda Racing F1 contested the 2007 Formula One season. A modified version of the RA107, renamed the Super Aguri SA08 was used by Super Aguri in the 2008 Formula One season. The RA107 was ...

, the first Formula One car designed under Nakamoto, was very poor, mainly due to bad aerodynamics. The RA107 was even inferior to the Super Aguri SA07, a re-worked model of Willis'

Honda RA106 The Honda RA106 (originally known as the BAR 008) was the car with which the Honda team competed in the Formula One season. It was driven by Rubens Barrichello, who joined from Ferrari, and Jenson Button, who had spent three seasons with the tea ...

from the previous season. Various explanations have been proposed for why the car performed so poorly. One was that the

wind tunnel Wind tunnels are large tubes with air blowing through them which are used to replicate the interaction between air and an object flying through the air or moving along the ground. Researchers use wind tunnels to learn more about how an aircraft ...

which was set up in July, 2006 broke at almost the same time that

was replaced by Nakamoto. Thus, the new car had been designed using a faulty wind tunnel. To try to fix the aerodynamics problems Honda employed a number of new aerodynamicists including

Loïc Bigois Loïc Bigois (born 19 September 1960 in Aix-en-Provence, France) is a French Formula One aerodynamicist. He is currently the Head of Aerodynamic Operations at Scuderia Ferrari. Career After studying engineering at the Conservatoire national de ...

, John Owen (ex-

BMW Sauber BMW has been involved in Formula One in a number of capacities since the inauguration of the World Drivers' Championship in . The company entered occasional races in the 1950s and 1960s (often under Formula Two regulations), before building th ...

), Ben Agathangelou (ex-

Red Bull Red Bull is a brand of energy drinks of Austria, Austrian company Red Bull GmbH. With 38% market share, it is the most popular energy drink brand as of 2019. Since its launch in 1987, more than 100 billion cans of Red Bull have been sold worldwid ...

), Peter Coysh (ex-

McLaren McLaren Racing Limited is a British motor racing team based at the McLaren Technology Centre in Woking, Surrey, England. McLaren is best known as a Formula One constructor, the second oldest active team, and the second most successful Formul ...

) and Francois Martinet (ex- Williams) in July 2007. On December 1, 2008, four days before Honda announced its withdrawal from Formula One, Nakamoto left the Honda F1 team and returned to HRC as the vice-president where he serves as the team principal of the

Repsol Honda Repsol Honda is the official factory team of the Honda Racing Corporation in the MotoGP class of Grand Prix motorcycle racing (World Championship road racing), backed by principal sponsor Repsol. History 1990s In the team entered a three rider ...

MotoGP Grand Prix motorcycle racing is the premier class of motorcycle road racing events held on road circuits sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme (FIM). Independent motorcycle racing events have been held since the start ...

team. He retired in November 2016.

Personal life

Nakamoto was born in Tottori, Japan, but now lives with his wife in

Maidenhead Maidenhead is a market town in the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead in the county of Berkshire, England, on the southwestern bank of the River Thames. It had an estimated population of 70,374 and forms part of the border with southern Bu ...

, England.

References

External links

Profile
- fro
Honda Racing F1 official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nakamoto, Shuhei 1957 births Living people Honda people Formula One people People from Tottori Prefecture Japanese motorsport people