🇯🇵 Takuya Izawa

Takuya Izawa is an established professional driver rated 6,498, placing him in the elite professional band; this is the level of race winners at the very top of international motorsport. His career has been defined almost entirely by Super GT, where he has competed across 17 seasons for Modulo Nakajima Racing and accumulated seven wins and 29 podiums from 122 starts. This consistency against a stable of regularly changing teammates has placed him among the most durable drivers in the series. He also tested the single-seater ladder early in his career, running in Formula 3 Macau in 2007, then competing in GP2 Series in 2014 and Super Formula in 2017, though these campaigns yielded only a single podium across 26 starts. His average finishing position across all racing stands at P9.9, a figure shaped almost entirely by his Super GT record.[1]

Izawa's head-to-head record within Super GT reveals the quality of the field he inhabits. Against Nobuteru Taniguchi, an FIA Silver graded driver, Izawa finished ahead in 109 of their 116 shared races. Against Tatsuya Kataoka, FIA Gold, he led in 104 of 116 encounters. However, against higher-rated opponents he has struggled consistently; against Hiroaki Ishiura, an elite professional and FIA Platinum graded driver, Izawa finished ahead only 41 times in 115 races. Against Kazuya Oshima, a 2016 Super GT champion and FIA Platinum graded professional, the record stands 50 ahead and 65 behind. His results against Ronnie Quintarelli, a three-time Super GT champion, show 71 finishes ahead of Quintarelli against 39 behind, suggesting an advantage at the middle of the field rather than head-to-head parity. Across his career Izawa has occasionally beaten much stronger drivers; he finished ahead of Pierre Gasly, an elite professional rated 7,911, on three occasions, and ahead of Alex Palou, champion of IndyCar four times, on five occasions, though these remain isolated results against drivers of substantially higher calibre.[2]

Izawa announced his retirement from GT500 competition in August 2025, though he remained active in the 2025 Super GT season and finished P23 overall with one podium across the six rounds raced to date. His 19-year racing career has been spent almost entirely in Japan's top sportscar series, where he has established himself as a reliable race-winning driver in a field dominated by full-time professionals, without ascending to the very highest tiers occupied by the elite champions and international stars who also compete there.