planetf1.com

I just read this, I've heard of small gaming companies using crowd funding but this is definitely a first for me in F1 o.O

Article link: http://www.supersport.com/motorsport/ar ... Id=1688314
KKs website(Japanese): www.kamui-support.com

I hope things work out for him.

Good Idea! I hope he reaches his goal and stays in F1! Let's spread the word KK Fans!
It would have been better doing it through something more mainstream like kickstarter though.

as a side note: ALL OF MY MONEY

I think it's a MASSIVE shame so much of the Japanese support for the sport a few years ago has been withdrawn. Despite arguably having the worst season of his career so far in 2012, Kamui in my opinion is by far the best Japanese driver the sport's ever had.

How disappointing that Takuma Sato (yes, I know what responses I'll receive here) managed to remain in the sport for so many years despite generally not being up to the job, due purely to his backing from Honda. And yet Kamui's potentially facing his last ever Grand Prix this weekend. The guy's got a decent amount of talent. For all we know, Sergio Perez may be the best thing since sliced bread (we'll find out to a large extent next year). His 2010 and 2011 campaigns were solid, and I think those combined with his performance in qualifying in general and at Suzuka this year have done enough to allow him to retain his seat at Sauber for next season. What a joke - Perez gets promoted to McLaren while Kobayashi is forced to leave the sport despite, on the whole, producing seasons of comparable quality.

Lets support him. He deserves a drive imo.

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HAMILTON/ALONSO/RAIKONNEN/VETTEL

What worries me is how basic that website is! Japanese only? No secure donation options? Kobayashi's people don't seem to be very web savvy....

Anyway, hopefully he'll bag another seat or a reserve drive somewhere.

The site is worth a look at just for the translation alone....

(copied from site):

Thank you for supporting the everyday life Kamui Kobayashi.
After the podium at the Japanese GP recently received a lot of messages, our staff, we really appreciate it, including the Kobayashi also.

Here every day, a variety of coverage has been about the next season of committing Kobayashi, We apologize for the worry and everyone.

Under such circumstances, I had a lot of offers of financial assistance to Kobayashi from everyone of many fans. We express our hearty thanks to the warm voice.

Kobayashi has been negotiating with the coming season now in full force, as you know, the presence or absence of dowry has a significant impact on the acquisition of the sheet everyone of the fans....... and so on

No Japanese sponsor show the true situation of Japanese economy.

I'd love to give him money... I don't understand the website though

EDIT: If he set up a paypal account I'd do it in a heartbeat but my bank charge me £10 to send money outside of the UK. Considering I'd only be putting up £5 max I don't think that'd help...

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Official Kamui Kobayashi Fanboy

I really hope it works out for Kamui. He belongs in F1. I suppose I've never considered him capable of winning the championship. But then there are many in that category. He and Perez are 8 points apart. Perez gets a McLaren seat and Kamui gets kicked out !

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Wrong on two things I think. First Kobayashi has had a better year this year than last, he's just been more unlucky. Last year he should have further ahead of Perez than he was and had a fairly anonymous seaon. This year he could quite possibly have had three more podiums but in Valencia Senna shut the door on him, in Monaco he couldnt avoid Grosjean and in Spa Grosjean ruined his race. I agree that Kamui's season has been nowhere near as bad as people say. As for the second thing, if you started watching F1 in 2005 then stopped watching until Turkey in 2008 you might come to that conclusion but otherwise quite a few races between that point can prove you wrong.

This. And when you consider that Perez success is mostly down to different tyre strategy, it gets even more puzzling on how the have such a different destinies.

GO KAMUI!
I hope he gets his seat for 2013.

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The end is near

Is this officially endorsed by him?

If so, its incredibly tragic. Asking the general public to pay for you to go racing. What do we get in return? Him trundling round at the back of the grid in a Marussia or something?

The problem with Kamui is, despite showing some signs of brilliance, overall he's fairly average. Three years at Sauber and its his younger, less experienced (in terms of F1 starts) gets the call from McLaren - must have been a kick in the balls.

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Warning: The above post may contain sarcasm.

An update here...
Kobayashi raises 500,000 pounds for seat
http://www.gpupdate.net/en/f1-news/2879 ... -for-seat/

Still far too less for a seat I think.

It worked (or a variation of it did) for Justin Wilson.

Good luck Kamui!

500k won't get him far.

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Warning: The above post may contain sarcasm.

One has to feel that if he'd been a little better in the first half of the season he wouldn't be in this mess. He had to beat Perez this year, but he didn't. Perez got the higher finishing positions and the glory whilst Koba was pretty anonymous for much of the year.

He's had three full seasons to make an impact but in reality he hasn't aside overtaking people in the mid field. He's had a fair crack and maybe it is time to let someone new into the sport for a go.

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1994 1995 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004

Yet we still ask for Takuma Sato to comeback?

Sato was the same way with Button in 2004 and people still want him to comeback and its not going to happen.

Kamui I think if he receives another opportunity, he needs to really give everything he has in order to secure himself somewhere. Justin Wilson did the same exact thing and he raised about 2 million pounds, but Kamui might be able to get some funds. Not enough though and does he even have an agent? Japanese economy is pretty slow as of right now...

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Felipe Massa fan/supporter since 2002 and counting!

It's not the first time. remember someone sold "shares" in themselves? Canny mind who except they were British.

Few of the Rally guys over here who have competed at International level have done fundraisers. Theres a motorbike man near me too did something similar.

I remember there being a big shindig to raise money for Nial McShea to he could compete the final round(S) of the PWRC.

It's a shame though someone at F1 level who has proven himself over three years has to resort to
it.

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Disclaimer: The above post maybe tongue in cheek.

"I thought I'd get your theories, mock them, then embrace my own. The usual."

Sponsors give money to drivers/teams in exchange for exposure, it is mutually beneficial.

What exactly is happening here? Is he just asking for free money? That's actually quite pathetic and demeaning.

I find it even weirder that people are giving the money. If you want to donate to a cause then donate to cancer or something worthwhile.

Maybe something is lost in translation but the whole thing seems bizarre to me.

I don't think people are serious about Sato, that is an in joke on the forum.

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1994 1995 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004

As much as I'd like Kamui to return, there's no way I'd pay to see him driving around in a Marussia or Caterham. No disrespect to him or those teams, but that's just not the way to go. He got himself into this position, and without sounding to harsh to the guy: tough shit - it's someone else's turn.

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Will Buxton said on Twitter that 500k might get him a GP3 seat. Not great news so far for Kamui.

He needs it in english!!!!

Cool concept.

I wouldn't give him money though. He's a solid racer, and seems like a good guy but in all honesty, I won't miss him that much. It's a sad state for F1 no doubt, but it's tough luck.

At least if he doesn't get as gig in F1 he'll still get to be a racing driver... I expect it's more fun and exciting than my job.

*Engrish

I just don't get why so many people talk Kobayashi down. He's shown himself to be the match or better than drivers with huge amounts of backing. Plus despite his struggles I've never heard of him bitching childishly about it.

He's fighting to keep a job he happens to be very good at. All the best to him, I say.

What's he going to do with the funds if he fails to get an F1 seat? Give them to charity perhaps?

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Well maybe he'd use his profile for charitable purposes/promotion - he's involved with an earthquake relief charity in Japan and made a phone app to promote it last year.

He'll also be signing lots of hats/photos no doubt!

And if he does get into F1 again? Damnit I'd expect to see a big thank you from Kamui and an invitation to a GP as his guest

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"You are the universe expressing itself as a Human for a little while..."

Yeah I'm sure I heard recently that you need about £1 million for a GP2 seat, wouldn't swear on that though.

He needs to get a Japanese sponsor who can bring him some decent capital.

Off the top of my head:

- Panasonic
- Toshiba
- Sony
- Canon
- Fujitsu
- Hitachi
- Epson

Or even a big bank like the Mitsubishi group.

Without some big backing he's got no chance.

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Couple of years ago a driver driving for one of the bottom teams during young drivers test said, that you need 5 mil but around 8 mil will pretty much guarantee that seat. This is just to drive for bottom 3 teams....

So yeah, that website may raise a million maybe, but there is no way he will raise anything over 2, but definitly nothing near that some young drivers can bring imho.

It was more than double that for the 2012 campaign, for a half decent seat anyway.
At least a couple of GP2 hopefuls this year were paying £2.5m, which is daft when you consider Narain was paying only £5m for his F1 drive.

Sadly because of this, we will never get to see the very best of the best. My son is now 8 years old. He's not very athletic (apparently inherited my wife's brother's gene) but he has insane hand/eye coordination for many things outside of physical sports and has real knack for driving. When I can afford to get him out on the track on his kart (which he has now outgrown) he places top 3 all the time in his class running a stock 50cc Comer again others who's engines are blueprinted and tuned to perfection. I can't afford all that so I do all his engine work myself so nothing special there and the only upgrade he has on it is the K&N Filer instead of the crappy stock air box. For me to get him sponsored I have to enter him in national events which are too expensive for me at this time and I have sacrificed my own karting for the time being just so he can go practice with his friends on the local tracks. Racing in these lower levels is simply overly expensive for no reason outside of "because we said so" and when speaking of F1, this is the case a trillionfold and it has gotten to the level where teams look for drivers to bring in personal sponsors to pay their salaries which is rigodamndiculous. In no other sport are athletes required to bring in sponsors to get drafted to a team. I mean can you imagine Michael Jordan having to come up with $10,000,000 per season so he could play with the Bulls, or Tom Brady having to come up with the same amount so he could be the Patriots' starting QB? it's preposterous. And I know F1 is 300% technology based which in and of itself is expensive but so is running ANY major sports franchise for any league. The difference you ask? Those other sports don't have an evil little troll syphoning more funds his way than back to the sport so there is far less revenue to share among the teams and this is why someone like a Kobiashi, like a Kovalainen, like a Barrichello (I know he's old and been there forever but the guy is still top notch), and like Anthony Davidson are out of rides in F1 and have to resort to buying their way in. Even still, can you imagine how may others we have missed on because they simply could not afford to break into higher levels of racing? Food for thought I guess.

Good Luck to KK but I do think he missed his chance to really impress.

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Second place is the first loser!

Why would anyone want to donate to this? Do something useful with your money instead of funding someone's dream job.

Message for Kamui; get in the real world.

So he is taking money from other people?

He should be paying himself with his own money!

Totally agree, I'm a big fan of him but won't be giving him a cent. There's way more deserving charities than some guy driving an F1 car round

I agree as well,

He should be paying himself or take a very big paycut to get a seat.

Why take other people's money, he doesn't even know them?
So sneaky and childish.

I mean if people wrote to Kamui and asked him for some donation to their kids so that they can do some karting would he be so willing to donate that much money?

Also it clearly shows how bad the Japanese economy is, no a single corporation is willing to help out Kamui but also the fact that he is not very marketable, he has the image of a 12 year old kid.

My 2c.

I dunno, it's not exactly charity. Call it fan-funding.
If you like a driver you might be willing to pay some cash to see him keep driving at the top level. I'm not saying I'd give, but I don't see anything wrong with it, either with him asking or people giving.

And when it comes to there being more deserving things to do with the money, well that pretty much applies to any luxury. Heck, a lot of people pay £400 odd a year just to watch the races that aren't on BBC. Imagine what that could do if you gave it to charity.

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Why does F1 pitch for us to give them money, when they don't know us?

I'm more curious as to why the barriers for entry for Japanese drivers seem to be higher than, say, drivers from Europe. In the last 10 years we only have Sato and Kobayashi. Is motor racing not that big over there?