- Tadayuki Okada
Infobox Former Grand Prix motorcycle rider
|Caption =
Name = Tadayuki Okada
Nationality = flagicon|JapanJapan ese
Years = 1989 - 2000, 2008
Teams =Honda
Races = 116
Championships = None
Wins = 6
Podiums = 36
Points = 1250
Poles = 7
Fastest laps = 8
First race = 1989 250cc Japanese Grand Prix
First win = 1994 250cc Japanese Grand Prix
Last win = 1999 500cc Australian Grand Prix
Last race = 2008 MotoGP Italian Grand PrixTadayuki 'Taddy' Okada (born
February 13 ,1967 ) is aJapan ese professional Grand Prixmotorcycle road racer. He was runner-up in the 1994 250cc and in the 1997 500cc World Championship.Early career
Okada won the 250cc
All Japan Road Race Championship in 3 successive years from 1989 to 1991 forHonda , who took him to the 250cc World Championship in 1993. He was runner-up in the series in 1994, and fourth in 1995.500cc and beyond
Okada stepped up to 500cc in 1996, helping develop the
V-twin Honda NSR500V and finished the season in 7th overall. In 1997, he had three wins and finished second to Mick Doohan. He missed several races in 1998 due to a wrist injury but bounced back in 1999 to finish third in the championship, with wins at Assen, Brno and Phillip Island cite news | url=http://www.motogp.com/en/motogp/motogp_riders.htm?menu=riders&rider_id=32&from=archive | title=Rider Statistics - Tadayuki Okada | publisher=MotoGP.com | accessdate=2007-10-11 ] . Going into the final round of the season he was second in points, but lost out to final-race winnerKenny Roberts, Jr. . After a largely unsuccessful 2000 he switched to theSuperbike World Championship for SBK|2001, without winning a race although taking three podium finishes and 8th overall, cite news | url=http://www.worldsbk.com/rider.php?p_S_Campionato=SBK&p_Conduttore=881 | title=Tadayuki Okada Career Statistics | publisher=WorldSBK.com | accessdate=2007-10-11 ] choosing to retire at the end of the year. Okada made a one-off wildcard appearance at the Italian Grand Prix at Mugello in June 2008, finishing 14th, in the first race for the pneumatic valved Honda RC212V cite news | url=http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/67930 | title=Honda about to make engine decision | publisher=Autosport.com | accessdate=2008-06-1 ] .
=Grand Prix career statistics cite news | url=http://www.motogp.com/en/motogp/motogp_riders.htm?menu=riders&rider_id=32&from=archive | title=Rider Statistics - Tadayuki Abe | publisher=MotoGP.com | accessdate=2007-10-12 ] =References
External links
* [http://www.crash.net/driver_view~cid~6~did~420.htm Tadayuki Okada] profile at [http://www.crash.net Crash.net]
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
