Kunimitsu Takahashi

Kunimitsu Takahashi

Nation:	Japan
Automobile world championship
First start:	1977 Japanese Grand Prix
Last start:	1977 Japanese Grand Prix
Constructors
1977  Meritsu Racing Team
statistics
World Cup balance:	no World Cup placement
Starts Victories Poles SR 1 - - -
World Cup points :	-
Podiums :	-
Leadership laps :	-

Kunimitsu Takahashi ( Japanese 高橋 国 光 , Takahashi Kunimitsu ; born January 29, 1940 in Koganei , Tokyo Prefecture ) is a former Japanese motorcycle and car racer .

Career

Motorcycling

Takahashi began his career as a motorcycle racing driver and was the first Japanese to win a world championship run in the 250 cc class on a Honda in 1961 . At the age of 21 he won the German Grand Prix . A serious accident at the Tourist Trophy on the Isle of Man in 1962 severely hampered the young Japanese's two-wheeler ambitions. After four motorcycle Grand Prix victories, he switched to four wheels in 1965.

Automobile sport

Takahashi drove in the Japanese Group C championship in the 1960s and in 1977 took over the old Tyrrell 007 from Kazuyoshi Hoshino in order to compete in the Japanese Grand Prix with this old racing car . In Fuji he drove the racing car powered by a Cosworth engine to ninth place.

At the beginning of the 1980s he was a works driver for Kojima in Formula 2 and drove a Toleman TG280 with Yokohama tires in the same monoposto class . He was four times in the decade Japanese sports car champion, his partners were the strong sports car drivers Kenny Acheson , Stanley Dickens and Kenji Takahashi .

In the 1990s he drove in the Japanese Formula 3000 championship and drove a Honda NSX in the Japanese GT championship .

statistics

Statistics in the automobile world championship

general overview

season	team	chassis	engine	run	Victories	Second	Third	Poles	nice Round	Points	WM-Pos.
1977	Meritsu Racing Team	Tyrrell 007	Ford Cosworth DFV 3.0 V8	1	-	-	-	-	-	-	NC

Single results

season	1	2	3	4th	5	6th	7th	8th	9	10	11	12	13	14th	15th	16	17th
1977
																	9

Legend
colour	abbreviation	meaning
gold	-	victory
silver	-	2nd place
bronze	-	3rd place
green	-	Placement in the points
blue	-	Classified outside the point ranks
violet	DNF	Race not finished (did not finish)
	NC	not classified
red	DNQ	did not qualify
	DNPQ	failed in pre-qualification (did not pre-qualify)
black	DSQ	disqualified
White	DNS	not at the start (did not start)
	WD	withdrawn
Light Blue	PO	only participated in the training (practiced only)
	TD	Friday test driver
without	DNP	did not participate in the training (did not practice)
	INJ	injured or sick
	EX	excluded
	DNA	did not arrive
	C.	Race canceled
		no participation in the World Cup
other	P / bold	Pole position
	SR / italic	Fastest race lap
	*	not at the finish, but counted due to the distance covered
	()	Streak results
	underlined	Leader in the overall standings

Le Mans results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
1986	Porsche Kremer Racing	Porsche 962C	Sarel van der Merwe	Jo Gartner	failure	fatal accident by Gartner
1987	Porsche Kremer Racing	Porsche 962C	Kris Nissen	Volker Weidler	failure	Engine failure
1988	Kenwood Kremer Racing	Porsche 962C	Bruno Giacomelli	Hideki Okada	Rank 9
1989	Porsche Kremer Racing	Porsche 962C	Bruno Giacomelli	Giovanni Lavaggi	failure	Fire
1990	Porsche Kremer Racing	Porsche 962CK6	Sarel van der Merwe	Hideki Okada	Rank 24
1994	Kremer Honda Racing	Honda NSX	Keiichi Tsuchiya	Akira Iida	Rank 18
1995	Team Kunimitsu Honda	Honda NSX	Keiichi Tsuchiya	Akira Iida	Rank 8 and class win
1996	Team Kunimitsu Honda	Honda NSX	Keiichi Tsuchiya	Akira Iida	Rank 16

literature

• Steve Small: Grand Prix Who's Who. 3rd edition. Travel Publishing, Reading 2000, ISBN 1-902007-46-8 .

Web links

Commons : Kunimitsu Takahashi  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Kunimitsu Takahashi on the official website of the Motorcycle World Championship (English).