Williams' Japanese rookie starting to show form as Williams' testing commitment bears fruit in Barcelona.
After setting the fourth-quickest time in second free practice in Barcelona on Friday afternoon, Kazuki Nakajima has points in his sights as all the testing miles he has conducted for Williams over the past few months begin to reap rewards.
The Japanese rookie may have finished in seventh position in the season curtain-raiser Down Under - thereby opening his account in only his second-ever grand prix - but since then he has struggled somewhat. Outpacing not only highly-regarded team-mate Nico Rosberg around the Circuit de Catalunya, but also such luminaries as Felipe Massa, Lewis Hamilton and Heikki Kovalainen was a real boost, he affirmed.
"It was a very good session," he reflected, speaking to the official Formula 1 site. "We had tried some set-up variations and I got the better end of it. I am quite confident, but in the end the times in the free practice sessions are difficult to judge and are never the ultimate indication of where a team stands. It's qualifying that separates the wheat from the chaff, so let's wait until Saturday afternoon.
"The new releases on the FW30 are a real step forward, so we should be able to be looking for a good result in qualifying and then in the race. We have done so much mileage to test the reliability of the car, and it has paid off."
Williams, like Nakajima, has shown mixed form in the 2008 campaign to-date, with a rostrum finish for Rosberg in Melbourne allied to Nakajima's points finish there, but little joy elsewhere. As he looks both back over the opening three races so far, and ahead to the remainder of the season, the GP2 Series graduate cannot hide his enthusiasm for being a member of the sport's elite.
"[Australia] felt really great," he underlined, "because to score points is a big moment for a driver - especially as scoring points has become pretty hard these days. Straight after the race I was not so happy as I had had a coming-together with Robert [Kubica]. It had to sink in, but once it did the feeling was quite overwhelming.
"I'm a rookie driver and still have a lot to learn, but my target naturally is to do the same job as Nico. Probably I have a little bit more space to make mistakes - that obviously is the benefit of being a rookie - but this phase naturally does not last forever.
"It's not easy to come to grips with all the procedures in F1, so it is quite easy to find yourself in a struggling position. For me I would be very satisfied if I could end this season as Heikki did last year - to catch up in performance and achieve a certain portion of self-confidence caused by results."
As to his rise up towards the top flight, the 23-year-old admitted his dad Satoru - who raced for both Lotus and Tyrrell in the late 1980s and early 1990s - had been a real inspiration to him, in a similar way to team-mate Rosberg and Renault's rookie Nelsinho Piquet, both of whose fathers won the Formula 1 World Championship back in the eighties.
"I would clearly say that I didn't become a driver because of my father," Nakajima insisted, "but my father sure was the reason that I got interested in motorsport. I basically grew up at a circuit, so it was much easier for me to learn to understand the basics of motorsport, but watching from outside and racing is a whole new ball game.
"Sure my father helped me a lot in the initial stages of my career, and I have been supported by Toyota for a long time too. Actually it was fantastic to grow under the Toyota umbrella and knowing I have their full backing.
"You could say it is related to my father, but the fascination for racing - really knowing that I was determined to sit in a cockpit and take the challenge out on a track - was my decision. You could probably say it is in my DNA."
