🇯🇵 Tadasuke Makino

Tadasuke Makino is an elite professional racing driver rated 7,558 on an Elo-style scale and holds FIA Gold status, placing him among the strongest full-time competitors in international sportscar and endurance racing. He competes primarily in Japan's two top racing series: Super GT, where he drives for Stanley Team Kunimitsu, and Super Formula, where he races for DoCoMo Team Dandelion Racing. He operates across both single-driver sprint championships and remains active in the 2026 season, so far running in both series through two Super GT rounds.[1]

Makino has been a fixture of Japan's top racing tier since 2019. In Super Formula, he has contested 59 starts over eight seasons and taken four wins and 15 podiums. His Super GT career, begun in 2016, spans 56 starts yielding four wins and 16 podiums; he won the GT500 class championship in 2020 with Team Kunimitsu and repeated the title in 2025. Before establishing himself in Japan's premier racing, he spent 2017 and 2018 in European junior categories, claiming one podium in FIA Formula 3 European and one win from 24 starts in Formula 2.[2]

Makino operates in a field that includes multiple top-tier professionals. Sho Tsuboi, a regular opponent with whom Makino is closely matched, holds elite professional standing and has won five major championships across Super GT and Super Formula. Nirei Fukuzumi, another established professional he meets regularly, competes at the same level. Earlier in his career Makino finished ahead of Lando Norris six times across European Formula 3, and George Russell three times in the same series; both are now Formula 1 drivers and among the sport's strongest competitors, a measure of the quality of the fields Makino has navigated at the junior level.