Akinori Kikkawa

Akinori Kikkawa (born 12th of May, 1994 in Shizouka Prefecture, Japan) is a racing driver, currently driving for Joest Racing in the 2019 FIA Endurance Challenge season. He was the champion of SARS in 2016.

Early Career

Kikkawa started his career later than most people, at 17 years old, debuting in All-Japanese F3. Despite his lack of experience, he showed a lot of potential and was able to hide his inexperience, as he mastered a 3rd place in the championship. Next year, in 2012, he won the championship, dominating the competition, and stepped up to Super Formula in 2013, with Mugen. His results were average at first, but later he showed more and more potential, finishing 7th in his first season. In 2014, he started gaining traction, and was in the battle for the win until reliability issues hampered his chances, finishing 3rd overall. He attempted to move to GP2 in 2014, but the move backfired, as no one wanted him. Thus, he gave up on single seaters and focused solely on prototypes and GTs. He made his debut in Super GT, where he seemed to accomodate very easily, and won the season after a hectic finale.

SARS (2016)

Akinori Kikkawa wasn't able to negotiate a renewal, because of his high demands, and poor negociations meant the Super GT champion would be out of a seat in 2016. However, at the last minute, with the organization of the Siemens Ausdauer Reject Series, Masterspark Onyx called him, and he accepted, and although he was a bit doubtful regarding the machinery at first, he was more than satisfied once he tested it. In his first race, a non-championship race at London, he had no issues at qualifying, however, the car struggled with punctures all day long, and then it was put out of misery by the end of the third hour. Despite a miserable debut, the team was hoping to do better in it's debut race. However, in a last-minute choice by an executive at Onyx, they swapped entries with IBR, meaning they would now be in the Prototype Class. Not only would they have to develop a prototype car from the ground-up, but they would also have to adapt to the new car, and to top it off, they would only have two months to develop the car. Onyx had to work 24/7 to get a new car going, and they contacted IBR to use many leftover parts of it's scrapped Prototype car. In the end however, the team had a satisfactory car, and was able to get going for the season. The cars struggled in the first race, specially Kikkawa, and they finished in last place, outpaced by their teammates in 4th. However, the crew didn't give up, and Kikkawa stepped up his game. He finished 2nd in the Montreal race, after starting from pole position. He also started from the front row in Spa-Francorchamps, he however threw the car away shortly after the start. He however stepped up his game, clinging onto the hope of becoming the champion despite the low chances. He won the last two races with ease, and in the last race, the couple took what was considered unlikely at the beggining of the year; a championship win, with only 4 laps to go, thanks to a fantastic pass by his teammate Yuji Ide.

Struggling year (2017)

Kikkawa, after the sucess, was slanted to run in SRT's ACO Le Mans Cup GT program. However, ACO Le Mans Cup collapsed before it started, esentially leaving Kikkawa without a permanent seat for 2017. He searched until he found himself in Team Mugen at Super Formula, finishing 4th. He continued with one-offs at Super GT and ELMS. After a heated off-season, he signed with Boutsen Ginion for a full-time outing in the Rolex GT Super Series.

Career Summary

Year	Series	Team	Races	Wins	Poles	F/Laps	Podiums	Points	Position
2011	All-Japan F3	ThreeBond	21	4	1	1	6	84	3rd
2012	All-Japan F3	ThreeBond	14	5	1	2	14	148	1st
2013	Super Formula	Team Mugen	6	0	0	0	2	17.5	7th
2014	Super Formula	Team Mugen	9	1	2	3	6	39	3rd
2015	Super GT (GT500)	NISMO	8	0	0	0	5	81	1st
2016	Siemens Ausdauer Reject Series (Prototype)	MasterSpark Onyx	5	2	2	0	3	2610	1st

Complete Super Formula results

(Races in bold indicate pole position)

Year	Entrant	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	DC	Points
2013	Team Mugen	SUZ 9	AUT 9	FUJ Ret	MOT 11	SUG 2	SUZ 2	SUZ 6			7th	17.5
2014	Team Mugen	SUZ 2	FUJ 2	FUJ 2	FUJ 2	MOT 1	AUT 3	SUG 6	SUZ 7	SUZ Ret	3rd	39