Shinobu Katayama

Shinobu Katayama (born 7th April 1990, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan) is a female Japanese racing driver, currently driving for the Venturi team in the AutoReject World Series' 2018 season. Behind 2012 champion Pippa Mann, Katayama is the most successful female driver in the history of the F1RWRS and ARWS.

Early Career

Living close to the Tsukuba circuit, Shinobu at a young age wanted to be a racing driver. She won several karting championships before she was 12 and won the Japanese Karting Championship at 15. During high school she flirted with Formula Suzuki and came 3rd despite only completing in half the races and won 75% of the races she entered. She was signed by Nissan as part of their young driver program. The Japanese F3 championship was won when she was 18, Formula Nippon at 20 and the inaugural F1RLFS Cup at 21 with just one last-minute race victory. By the time the series was taken over by Finnish NVRT Holdings under the guise of Rejects of LFS, the driver's championship trophy (won by Cave Johnson and Marcel Agyemang-Badu in 2014 and 2015 respectively) is named after her.

Career in the F1RWRS

Australian Minardi (2012)

Katayama made her first appearance in the F1RWRS mid-way through the 2012 season, driving a second car for Australian Minardi. This came about following the takeover of the team by Nissan's motorsport arm Nismo, who desired a Japanese presence in the team. Katayama was guaranteed a place at the team for 2013 anyway, but was given the last six races of 2012 to get herself accustomed to the series. Following her debut at the Tasman GP, Katayama generally struggled for performance, however she was able to finish a strong fourth at the Australian Grand Prix, her first ever points finish, and Australian Minardi's last before the full takeover by Nissan took effect.

Sunshine Infiniti (2013-2014)

At the end of 2012, the Australian Minardi team was re-branded as Sunshine Infiniti and used Nissan engines badged as Infinitis, the name of the manufacturer's luxury vehicle arm. Katayama was thus retained in the new team, and was partnered by fellow countryman Hagane Shizuka. The Sunshine SN-1 suffered greatly with unreliability over the course of the 2013 season however, and consequently Katayama only finished three races over the whole year, though she was classified as completing over 90% of the race distance in a further two. In all three races she scored points though, starting with fifth at the US Grand Prix, followed by her first podium with second place at Portugal, where she also took fastest lap, a feat she achieved on three other occasions during the year. Her final finish was also her best, at her home race, the Japanese Grand Prix, she took pole position, and went on to win in front of a jubilant Japanese crowd. With a total of 18 points over the year, it was enough to give Katayama joint 8th place in the drivers' championship by the end of the season, tied with Daniel Melrose.

For 2014, Katayama remained with Sunshine, and reaped the benefit of a more reliable car. Whilst teammate Kay Lon struggled greatly with accidents and mechanical issues, Katayama was able to consistently finish and pick up a number of good results. By half distance she had scored all of the team's 15 points, with a best result of two second places at Australia and France. A third place at the ninth race of the year, the German GP, meant she had beaten her score from 2013 with another seven races left to go.

Racing record

Career summary

Year	Series	Team	Position
2006	Formula Suzuki	??	3rd
2007	Japanese F3	??	??
2008	Japanese F3	??	1st
2009	Formula Nippon	??	??
2010	Formula Nippon	??	1st
2011	LFS Cup	Sunshine Infiniti	1st
2012	F1RWRS	Australian Minardi	25th
2013	F1RWRS	Sunshine Infiniti	8th
2014	F1RWRS	Sunshine Infiniti	3rd
2015	F1RWRS	Sunshine Daihatsu	18th
2016	F1RWRS	Revolution Engineering	43rd
2017	F1RWRS	Rob Lomas Racing	26th
		BASF Nurminen Grand Prix
2018	ARWS	Venturi Formula	18th

Complete LFS Cup results

(Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Complete F1RWRS and ARWS results

(Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Year	Entrant	Chassis	Engine	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	DC	Pts
2012	Australian Minardi	Minardi PS10	BMW P86/12	BAV	SAX	GER	LUX	BEL	NED	GBR	KEN	ENG	TAS 10	SUR Ret	NSW 12	AUS 4	CHN 22	USA 14	500 15			25th	5
2013	Sunshine Infiniti	Sunshine SN-1	Infiniti GLX13T	TAS Ret	AUS Ret	MEX Ret	USA 5	MON Ret	FRA 11†	GBR 11†	GER Ret	NED Ret	BEL Ret	POR 2	MED Ret	MAC Ret	CHN Ret	JPN 1	BRA Ret			8th	18
2014	Sunshine Infiniti	Sunshine SN-2	Infiniti GLX14T	TAS 4	AUS 2	BRA 12	MEX 8	USA Ret	MON Ret	FRA 2	GBR 12	GER 3	BEL 6	ITA 3	MED Ret	NED 9	MAC 1	CHN 3	JPN 10			3rd	38
2015	Sunshine Daihatsu	Sunshine SD-01	Daihatsu Zeetec-R1	TAS Ret	AUS	MED	MON Ret	MEX	USA	CAN	GBR											18th	6
	ArrowTech-Acuri Autosport	Arrowtech AT-05	Renault RS1									GER 4	BEL 15	AUT 4	ITA Ret
	Revolution Engineering DMS	Revolution HS-15	Honda RA101E													NED DNQ	CHN DNPQ	JPN Ret	BRA DNPQ
2016	Revolution Engineering DMS	Revolution HS-16	Renault RSXXI-16	AUS DNPQ	NSW DNPQ	GBR DNPQ	ITA Ret	AUT DNPQ	CAN DNPQ	SUS DNPQ	NUS DNPQ	GER DNPQ	NED DNPQ	MON DNPQ	BEL DNPQ	MEX	ARG	CHN DNPQ	JPN DNPQ			43rd	0
2017	Rob Lomas Racing	Lomas RLR-P01	Audi AF1-4	AUS	NSW	GBR Ret	ITA DNPQ	AUT DNPQ	CAN 6	SUS Ret	NUS DNPQ	GER DNPQ	NED DNPQ	MON DNPQ	BEL DNPQ							26th	1
	BASF Nurminen Grand Prix	Nurminen NRE Type 01	Holden LSF1-17													MOR DNQ	ARG 12†	JPN Ret	CHN Ret
2018	Venturi Formula	Venturi V2-001	Yamaha OX64	AUS 14†	NSW DNPQ	ITA Ret	MAR Ret	CAL Ret	USA 11	CAN Ret	GBR 10	AUT Ret	GER 7	SCA 9	BEL Ret	MON Ret	RSA 11†	BRA Ret	ARG	JPN	CHN	18th*	0*

* Season still in progress.
† Did not finish, but was classified as she had completed more than 90% of the race distance.

Sporting Accolades
Preceded by: None	LFS Cup Champion 2011	Succeeded by: Cave Johnson 2014