Japanese
The climb
Jin Nakamura (born 1 February 2006 in Chiba Prefecture) is a Toyota Gazoo Racing Driver Challenge protege whose path to Europe ran through one of the most varied junior careers on the current F3 grid. He cut his teeth at the TGR-DC Racing School in the Japanese F4 Championship, finishing fourth with a win and 126 points as a 2022 rookie before mounting a genuine title challenge in 2023 - three wins, nine podiums, 209 points and runner-up, beaten only by teammate Rikuto Kobayashi after a season-long duel.
What set Nakamura apart was breadth. Across 2024 he raced almost everything Toyota's Japanese programme could offer: Super Formula Lights (fourth, one win, eight podiums with TOM'S), Super GT in GT300, a class team title in Super Taikyu ST-2, plus outings at the Macau Grand Prix and in the Le Mans Cup's LMP3 ranks. In 2025 he relocated to Europe with R-ace GP, taking a win and podium in the Formula Regional Middle East series and his first European podium at the Red Bull Ring in the Formula Regional European championship - finishing tenth in each, the springboard for his F3 graduation. Ahead of the 2026 F3 season he also ran the Toyota-backed Formula Regional Oceania Trophy with Hitech, taking six podiums.
Formula 3
Nakamura stepped up to the FIA Formula 3 Championship for 2026 with Hitech TGR, part of an all-new line-up and one of the first Toyota-backed drivers placed with the British team. To bank extra racing mileage he ran a parallel GB3 programme with Hitech across six non-clashing rounds, where he was an immediate front-runner with a win and a podium.
2026 / current season
The F3 rookie campaign began on a high note: Nakamura scored his maiden championship points at the Melbourne season opener in the feature race, the kind of debut-weekend return that signalled he belonged. The early rounds left him among the points-scorers in the lower reaches of the top half of the table. As a Toyota junior with an unusually rounded racing education and a manufacturer behind him, Nakamura arrives in F3 as one of the more intriguing rookies to watch as the season develops.