Sebastien Buemi has praised departing team-mate Kazuki Nakajima on the eve of Nakajima’s final race with Toyota Gazoo Racing.
It was announced on Wednesday that Nakajima would be departing Toyota after a nine-season tenure with the team. Buemi and Nakajima have both been involved with Toyota’s WEC programme from the very beginning, both joining the team in 2012.
The duo has been paired up together since 2015, first with Anthony Davidson and later with Fernando Alonso and Brendon Hartley. In their time as a pair, they won the 24 Hours of Le Mans on three consecutive occasions and captured the world title in 2019.
In the pre-race press conference on Thursday, Buemi recalled his history with his Japanese co-driver.
“I think I first met Kazuki when I was racing in Formula 3, a really long time ago,” he said. “I’ve been racing for Toyota since 2012, and he was there, back in the days with Alex [Wurz] and Nico Lapierre. We are the only two still part of the team that have been there since the very beginning of the project.
“Since 2015 we have been sharing the car, so we’ve had some bad days, like in Le Mans where we had the issue a lap from the end. But then we won Le Mans three times in a row and we won the Super Season. We’ve had some good and some bad races together.
“He’s been a great team-mate, one of the best team-mates you could hope for. He’s a calm guy, he finds a way to make sure everyone’s always happy with the situation.”
Buemi, Nakajima and Hartley go into the final round of the championship in Bahrain with an outside chance of taking the title away from the #7 sister car. Buemi says he would have hoped for a better ending to the season with the departure of his team-mate in mind.
“I just wished we would have a good end to the season, especially because it’s going to be the last one so hopefully we can do a good job. He’s a great guy and whatever happens in the future, we will remain in close contact because we’ve shared a lot together.”
It currently remains unclear who will replace Nakajima for the 2022 campaign. Ryo Hirakawa remains a likely candidate, but Toyota has yet to announce its line-up.
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