Tadasuke Makino

Tadasuke Makino
Makino at the podium of the 2024 Super Formula Motegi round where he won.
Nationality	Japanese
Born	(1997-06-28) 28 June 1997 Osaka, Japan
Super GT career
Debut season	2016
Current team	Team Kunimitsu
Racing licence	FIA Gold
Car number	100
Former teams	Drago Corse, Nakajima Racing
Starts	50
Wins	3
Podiums	13
Poles	3
Fastest laps	2
Best finish	1st in 2020
Super Formula career
Debut season	2019
Current team	Docomo Team Dandelion Racing
Car number	5
Former teams	Nakajima Racing
Starts	44
Wins	2
Podiums	9
Poles	2
Fastest laps	0
Previous series
2018 2017 2016 2015	FIA Formula 2 Championship FIA European F3 All-Japan F3 Championship F4 Japanese Championship
Championship titles
2020	Super GT

Tadasuke Makino (牧野 任祐, Makino Tadasuke, born 28 June 1997) is a Japanese racing driver. He has competed in a range of motorsport disciplines, including Super GT and European Formula 3. In 2018, Makino raced in the FIA Formula 2 Championship with Russian Time, taking a feature race win. In 2019, he began competing full-time in Super Formula and Super GT in Japan. He won the GT500 championship in Super GT in 2020, driving for Team Kunimitsu alongside Naoki Yamamoto.

Career

Early career

Makino started his motorsport career in karting in 2007 and remained active there until 2013. In 2014 he made the switch to formula racing, where he entered the JAF Japanese Formula 4 Championship. He won one race there.

Formula 4

In 2015, Makino made the move to Japan's new official Formula 4 Championship, and raced for the Rn-sports team. He won four of the championship's first five races at the Okayama International Circuit and Fuji Speedway (both two wins) straight away, but then had to wait until the final race weekend at Twin Ring Motegi to add two more wins to his name. At the end of the season, he finished second with 192 points, just three points fewer than eventual champion Sho Tsuboi.

Formula 3

In 2016, Makino made his Formula 3 debut in the Japanese Formula 3 Championship as a driver from Honda's training program. In this he raced for the TODA Racing team. He took four podiums and was fifth in the championship with 41 points. At the end of the season, he competed in three races of the Super GT for Drago Modulo Honda Racing GT500, taking one podium finish alongside Hideki Mutoh at the Chang International Circuit. He also drove for Toda Racing in the Grand Prix of Macau, in which he finished fourteenth.

In 2017 Makino continued to drive in Formula 3, but made the switch to the European Formula 3 Championship as a driver for Hitech GP. He had a difficult start to the season, scoring only twice in the first half of the year before breaking his wrist and finger in an accident with Harrison Newey at the Norisring. Despite his injury, he only missed the race weekend at Spa-Francorchamps. After his return, he regularly finished in the top 10 with a podium finish at the Red Bull Ring as the highlight. In the end, he finished fifteenth in the final standings with 57 points.`

Formula 2

Makino at the 2018 Monza Formula 2 round

In 2018 Makino made his Formula 2 debut with the Russian Time team. He scored points regularly until he surprisingly won the feature race at the Monza in the second half of the season thanks to good strategy. He finished thirteenth in the standings with 48 points.

Super Formula

In 2019 Makino returned to Japan to participate in the Super Formula for the team Nakajima Racing. In the end of 2020, Makino suffered from meningitis and thus skipped the Super Formula finale, where he was replaced by Hiroki Otsu. For the 2021 season, Makino moved from Nakajima Racing to Dandelion Racing. But he did not enter the first two rounds, due to still being in healing phase, which meant Ukyo Sasahara covered for him in those races. Makino returned at the third round in Autopolis. Makino then stayed with the same team till now and he grabbed couple of podiums every year.

Super GT

In 2019, Makino stepped up to Super GT GT500 along with his Super Formula program. He competed with Nakajima Racing alongside Narain Karthikeyan. The next season he replaced Jenson Button as he competed with Team Kunimitsu alongside former GT500 title winner Naoki Yamamoto. Both Yamamoto and Makino won the Super GT title, beating Ryo Hirakawa in the last race. Makino continued racing with the team for the next couple of seasons, but had to skip one round due to illness in 2021 and was covered by Hideki Mutoh.

Karting record

Karting career summary

Season	Series	Team	Position
2011	Rotax Max Euro Challenge — Junior	Intrepid Force Rotax	31st
	Rotax Max Challenge Grand Finals — Junior		29th
	WSK Final Cup — KF3	Tony Kart Racing Team	14th
2012	Rotax International Open — Senior		33rd
	IAME International Final — X30 Senior		18th
	Rotax Max Euro Challenge — Senior		19th
	CIK-FIA Asia Pacific Championship — KF2		25th
2013	Florida Winter Tour — Rotax Senior		5th
	CIK-FIA Asia Pacific Championship — KF		19th

Racing record

Career summary

Season	Series	Team	Races	Wins	Poles	FLaps	Podiums	Points	Position
2015	F4 Japanese Championship	Rn-sports	14	6	4	3	11	192	2nd
2016	Japanese Formula 3 Championship	Toda Racing	17	0	1	0	4	41	5th
	Macau Grand Prix		1	0	0	0	0	N/A	14th
	Super GT - GT300	Cars Tokai Dream28	1	0	0	0	0	0	NC
	Super GT	Drago Modulo Honda Racing	3	0	0	0	1	15	16th
2017	FIA Formula 3 European Championship	Hitech GP	27	0	0	0	1	57	15th
	Macau Grand Prix	Motopark	1	0	0	0	0	N/A	9th
2018	FIA Formula 2 Championship	Russian Time	24	1	0	0	1	48	13th
2019	Super GT	Modulo Nakajima Racing	8	0	0	0	1	23.5	12th
	Super Formula	TCS Nakajima Racing	7	0	1	0	0	6	16th
	Intercontinental GT Challenge	Honda Team Motul	1	0	0	0	0	0	NC
2020	Super GT	Team Kunimitsu	8	1	0	0	3	69	1st
	Super Formula	TCS Nakajima Racing	6	0	0	0	1	20	12th
2021	Super GT	Team Kunimitsu	7	1	1	0	2	57	4th
	Super Formula	Docomo Team Dandelion Racing	5	0	0	0	1	24	9th
2022	Super Formula	Docomo Team Dandelion Racing	10	0	0	0	2	61	5th
	Super GT	Team Kunimitsu	8	1	1	1	3	62	3rd
2023	Super Formula	Docomo Team Dandelion Racing	9	0	1	0	2	43	6th
	Super GT	Team Kunimitsu	8	0	1	1	1	34	10th
	Super Taikyu - ST-Z	Techno First	2	0	0	0	0	99‡	3rd‡
2024	Super GT	Stanley Team Kunimitsu	7	0	0	0	2	56	2nd*
	Super Formula	Docomo Team Dandelion Racing	7	2	0	0	3	72	2nd*
	Super Taikyu - ST-Z	Techno First

^* Season still in progress.

‡ Team standings

Complete Japanese Formula 3 Championship results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Year	Entrant	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	Pos	Points
2016	Toda Racing	SUZ1 1 8	SUZ1 2 6	FUJ1 1 6	FUJ1 2 6	OKA1 1 Ret	OKA1 1 2	SUZ2 1 4	SUZ2 2 6	FUJ2 1 3	FUJ2 2 5	MOT 1 2	MOT 2 5	OKA2 1 5	OKA2 2 3	SUG 1 4	SUG 2 9	SUG 3 7	5th	41

Complete Super GT results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Year	Team	Car	Class	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	DC	Points
2016	Cars Tokai Dream28	Lotus Evora MC	GT300	OKA	FUJ	SUG	FUJ	SUZ Ret				NC	0
	Drago Modulo Honda Racing	Honda NSX Concept-GT	GT500						CHA 2	MOT 12	MOT 15	16th	15
2019	Modulo Nakajima Racing	Honda NSX-GT		OKA 10	FUJ 10	SUZ 11	CHA 10	FUJ 10	AUT 7	SUG 2	MOT 12	12th	23.5
2020	Team Kunimitsu			FUJ 6	FUJ 5	SUZ 2	MOT 5	FUJ 5	SUZ Ret	MOT 3	FUJ 1	1st	69
2021				OKA	FUJ 4	MOT 1	SUZ 4	SUG 2	AUT 6	MOT 12	FUJ 14	4th	57
2022				OKA 2	FUJ 5‡	SUZ 9	FUJ 8	SUZ 11	SUG 8	AUT 2	MOT 1	3rd	62
2023				OKA 12	FUJ 2	SUZ 5	FUJ 6	SUZ 7	SUG Ret	AUT 9	MOT 10	10th	34
2024	Stanley Team Kunimitsu	Honda Civic Type R-GT GT500		OKA 3	FUJ 7	SUZ 7	FUJ 2	SUG 5	AUT 4	MOT 6	SUZ	2nd*	56*

^‡ Half points awarded as less than 75% of race distance was completed. ^* Season still in progress.

Complete Macau Grand Prix results

Year	Team	Car	Qualifying	Quali Race	Main race
2016	Toda Racing	Dallara F312	22nd	19th	14th
2017	Motopark	Dallara F317	12th	17th	9th

Complete FIA Formula 3 European Championship results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Year	Entrant	Engine	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	22	23	24	25	26	27	28	29	30	DC	Points
2017	Hitech GP	Mercedes	SIL 1 11	SIL 2 19	SIL 3 15	MNZ 1 12	MNZ 2 14	MNZ 3 13	PAU 1 13	PAU 2 12	PAU 3 7	HUN 1 13	HUN 2 17	HUN 3 17	NOR 1 8	NOR 2 14	NOR 3 Ret	SPA 1	SPA 2	SPA 3	ZAN 1 Ret	ZAN 2 15	ZAN 3 16	NÜR 1 7	NÜR 2 4	NÜR 3 19	RBR 1 5	RBR 2 17	RBR 3 3	HOC 1 9	HOC 2 9	HOC 3 11	15th	57

Complete FIA Formula 2 Championship results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate points for the fastest lap of top ten finishers)

Year	Entrant	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	22	23	24	DC	Points
2018	Russian Time	BHR FEA 19	BHR SPR 17	BAK FEA 9	BAK SPR 9	CAT FEA 9	CAT SPR Ret	MON FEA 14†	MON SPR Ret	LEC FEA 8	LEC SPR Ret	RBR FEA 7	RBR SPR 6	SIL FEA 12	SIL SPR 11	HUN FEA 9	HUN SPR 12	SPA FEA 12	SPA SPR 11	MNZ FEA 1	MNZ SPR 14	SOC FEA 10	SOC SPR 11	YMC FEA 9	YMC SPR Ret	13th	48

^† Driver did not finish the race, but was classified as he completed over 90% of the race distance.

Complete Super Formula results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Year	Entrant	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	DC	Points
2019	TCS Nakajima Racing	SUZ Ret	AUT 4	SUG 14	FUJ 10	MOT Ret	OKA 17	SUZ 13				16th	6
2020		MOT 9	OKA Ret	SUG 7	AUT 3	SUZ Ret	SUZ 8	FUJ				12th	20
2021	Docomo Team Dandelion Racing	FUJ	SUZ	AUT 14	SUG 5	MOT 7	MOT 3	SUZ 10				9th	24
2022		FUJ 6	FUJ Ret	SUZ 3	AUT 6	SUG 4	FUJ 5	MOT 4	MOT 3	SUZ 7	SUZ 9	5th	61
2023		FUJ 14	FUJ 8	SUZ 15	AUT 6	SUG 3	FUJ 21	MOT Ret	SUZ 43‡	SUZ 10		6th	43
2024		SUZ 10	AUT 1	SUG 4‡	FUJ 5	MOT 1	FUJ 4	FUJ 3	SUZ	SUZ		2nd*	72*

^‡ Half points awarded as less than 75% of race distance was completed. ^* Season still in progress.

External links

• Official website (in Japanese)
• Tadasuke Makino career summary at DriverDB.com