After winning the 250cc Japanese Championship in 1998, Shinya Nakano abandoned his engineering studies in Tokyo to join the 250cc World Championship, winning his first GP at Motegi in 1999. In 2000 he finished runner-up for the title, then moved up to 500cc to pick up 7 top five finishes and one podium from nine front row starts. He struggled to make an impression on the four-stroke Yamaha M1 and in 2004 he joined Kawasaki, scoring an unthinkable podium in their home round at Motegi. He rode for Konica Minolta Honda’s 800cc project in 2007, with a best finish of tenth, then for Gresini Honda for his final year in MotoGP, first on a non-factory machine then debuting on the factory RCV in the Czech Republic where he finished 4th, his best of the season.