It's now official: Takaaki Nakagami will replace Luca Marini at the Italian Grand Prix in the Honda team.
It was almost certain, but this time the news was made official by the HRC: Takaaki Nakagami will replace Luca Marini at the Italian Grand Prix this weekend. The Italian driver, who was seriously injured during practice for the Suzuka 8 Hours three weeks ago, is not yet fit to return to the race, and his return date remains unknown. However, he has confirmed that he will be present in the pit box at Mugello.
Takaaki Nakagami will therefore take his place this weekend, having already participated in the French Grand Prix last month. An official driver with the LCR team last year, he became a test driver for HRC, and had therefore taken on a new role at Le Mans by spending the weekend testing numerous things for Honda. The Japanese nevertheless made an impression by finishing at an incredible sixth place on Sunday, by pulling out all the stops in a particularly chaotic race.
If reproducing such a performance does not seem to be current, Nakagami will, however, be keen to achieve a good result. The Italian track has not always been kind to him in the past, with several blank results, but he also achieved a top 5 in 2019 as well as a top 8 in 2022
"First of all, I wish Luca a speedy recovery. It is a pleasure and an honor to join the factory team, thank you to Honda HRC for this opportunity.", said number #30. "With the test team, we worked hard in Japan for the future, but this weekend the challenge will be a little different. I loved racing at Mugello in the past, and I've achieved some solid results there. We'll see what we can do and how we can help the team during the Italian Grand Prix."
