“Kuhnichiwah” Suzuka Circuito

So the Japanese Grand Prix returned to its traditional (and rightful) home of the wonderful Suzuka Circuito this year for the first time since 2006, after a massive infield complex upgrade, including brand new Pit garages, Media Centre and extensive track repaving, which thankfully the circuit was NOT neutered by Herman Tilke, while reputedly Uncle Bernaughty was overly quick to point out to the BRDC how he’d asked the Japanese to spend money and they’d done it…

As memories came flooding back (Pun intended) as Friday’s practice session was an extremely soggy affair due to a fast approaching Typhoon, of which I’d encountered upon my wonderful outing to Suzuka way back in 2004… (Can it really be already 5yrs ago? Since seeing the TERMINATOR score another glorious victory…)

And I sat there pondering just how well would the Laser ride height sensor that Steve Matchett had pointed out its red light during the Singapore event function in the abysmal conditions.

Interestingly, it was originally pointed out by Bob Varsha that nine of the current twenty F1 Piloto’s on the grid had never raced a Formula 1 chassis in anger at Suzuka, which seemed pretty high to Mwah, as it was later pointed out during the Qualifying pre-amble that there were six “Freshman” debutants at this year’s Japanese GP event, with obviously half of these being the three Formula 1 Rookies of Renault’s Romain Grosjean and both Scuderia Toro Rosso Drivers Jaime Alguersuari and Sebastien Buemi.

The other three debutants are none other then reigning World Champion Lewis Hamilton and McLaren teammate Heikki Kovalainen and Toyota’s Timo Glock.

Meanwhile Red Bull Racing’s Sebastian Vettel and Force India’s Adrian Sutil have only participated as Friday Third Driver’s back in 2006, while Williams home grown talent Kazuki Nakajima had previously run at Suzuka countless times, just not in a Grand Prix.

Thanks to F1 Fanatic for doing the heavy lifting on this, as I got tired of SPEED blathering on ‘bout it all weekend long with never saying the names out loud!

F1 Drivers relish Suzuka challenge

And according to Inside Grand Prix, the hardest braking spot is the Casio Triangle corner just prior to the start/finish straight, where the drivers must bleed off a massive 204kph and resist a “Mega” 5.9G deceleration force.

And I’ve already scribbled about the wild ‘N wacky Qualifying session in Utterly chaotic Qualifying in Japan.

While the race seemed to be a somewhat more sedate affair, with Pole Sitter “ZEBB (Vettel) basically rocketing off into the distance on his Monza Renault Lump which will be utilized in one of the final two races, with Toyota’s Jarno Trulli getting jumped by the KERS powered McLaren of Lewis Hamilton on the start and BMW Sauber’s Nick Heidfeld moving up to fourth place, while once again ‘JENSE struggled mightly to get into the points from his tenth place starting position.

As the race was fairly dull from the leader’s perspective, although I was happy to see Trulli-Scrumptious get back around Hamilton, who would finish 2-3 respectively, while Button’s points lead was shaved once again, with great infighting occurring mid-pack, while Vettel simply “Walked-it!” For his third victory of the season and fourth of his young career, and thus, the Championship rolls onto Brazil, with button on 85 points, leading teammate Barrichello by 14 (71) and Vettel by 16, (69) with a maximum of 20pts up for grabs; meanwhile BRAWN GP is all but assured of wrapping up its very first Constructors Title at Interlagos, as it leads Red Bull 156-120.5 and both cars would have to retire from both races with a maximum of 36pts available in the Constructors chase.

Race Drive of Suzuka
Although I was hard pressed to choose between Jarno Trulli and a very impressive outing by “Quick Nick’s” (Heidfeld) resurgent BMW Sauber, my choice goes to the German wunderkind Sebastian Vettel, who simply dominated the weekend and is always a pleasure to listen to in the interviews and especially on his in-car radio when celebrating victory! As ‘Hobbo (David Hobbs) said again; Vettel like Michael Schumacher just seems to enjoy winning...

Top 3 - Qualifying
Pole: Sebastian Vettel
Second: Jarno Trulli
Third: Lewis Hamilton

Race Results
Winner: S. Vettel; 2nd: J. Trulli; 3rd: L. Hamilton; 4th: K. Raikkonen;
5th: N. Rosberg; 6th: N. Heidfeld; 7th: R. Barrichello; 8th: J. Button.

Utterly chaotic Qualifying session in Japan

Whale I’ve just finished watching the most chaotic F1 Qualifying session that I can recall in a very long time from suzuka, Japan… And although the rain has stopped for the time being, with reports of another Typhoon heading towards the Philippines, the accidents certainly did not!

The morning’s final practice session saw Mark Webber write-off his RB5 chassis upon ripping off the steering rack in a brutal crash and therefore didn’t take part in today’s Qualifying.

Then, a most bizarre three red flags were issued during a Qualifying session fraught with five crashes involving four drivers, with Scuderia Toro Rosso’s Sebastien Buemi crashing twice and causing a Yellow flag which would ultimately effect the final grid positions of four drivers, who were deemed to have not lifted off of the throttle in this area, as both BRAWN GP Drivers ‘JENSE & Rubino, along with Fernando Alonso and Adrian Sutil would all receive five grid spot penalties for this infraction. (Which makes it pretty funny to see how animated Fredrico was after the Q2 “Quallie” session…) While Buemi was docked five grid spots for driving back to the pits in his damaged car from his second incident and impeding the progress of his competitors.

But oh no, we weren’t done yet with the grid penalties, as adding insult to injury was McLaren’s Heikki Kovalin, one of the red flag crashers… And Force India’s Vitantonnio Luzzi both being forced to take five grid spot penalties upon replacing their gearboxes.

Meanwhile, Toyota’s Timo Glock who was flown by helicopter to Hospital with back pains and a cut leg, who hopefully will race tomorrow, joined Webber on the final row of the grid as his TF109 chassis also needed to be replaced, with SPEED now reporting that Glock will NOT participate tomorrow and there will only be a single Toyota participating.

Hopefully the race will be a little less chaotic with no more accidents, eh?

Revised Starting Grid

Japan and Formula 1

Have you ever wondered why no Japanese drivers have truly succeeded in Formula 1? And while Japan still awaits a maiden Grand Prix victory from one of its driver’s, Honda has thus far carried the torch while the verdict is still out over its rival Toyota…

Although this season’s results have been horrific for Honda and its “Planet Earth” theme, nevertheless Honda’s storied history in Formula 1 now spans over four decades. With Japan’s first success coming during Honda’s original foray into F1 in the early 1960’s.

The burgeoning team began life with a relative unknown American driver by the name of Ronnie Bucknum after Honda was unable to acquire the services of Phil Hill.

Bucknum debuted the Honda RA271 1.5 liter V-12 in the German Grand Prix at the Nurburgring in 1963, with Honda’s single car effort wallowing about the rear of the grid during 1964 before Honda decided to add a second American pilot to its line-up in 1965.

This driver was fellow Californian Richie Ginther who was known as a very good development driver, which Honda was looking for. Ginther scored Honda’s very first Formula 1 World Championship point with a sixth place finish at Spa. Then in the very last race of the 1.5 liter engine era held in Mexico City, Ginther scored Honda’s maiden F1 victory with Bucknum finishing fifth.

From 1966-68, Honda struggled to come to grips with the new 3.0 liter engine formula as both Bucknum and Ginther left the team at the end of 1966. They were replaced by 1964 World Champion John Surtees for the ‘67 season. Surtees would give Honda its second F1 victory at Monza, Italy in the RA 300’s racing debut before falling out of favour withSoichiro Honda over the portly RA 302 not being ready to race.

Thus in the summer of 1968 the unwieldy RA 302 magnesium chassis, air cooled V-12 race car was given to Frenchman Jo Schlesser to race in the French GP instead. Unfortunately Schlesser lost control of the vehicle, rolled and burst into flames before loosing his life, thus effectively ending Honda’s first foray into Formula 1 at the end of the 1968 season.

Interestingly when the movie Grand Prix was made in 1966, I suspect it was viewed as preposterous that a Japanese entry would ever win the World Championship. But in 1983 Honda began development of a new style racing engine, a 1.5 liter twin turbocharged V-6 running in the back of the minnow-esc Spirit Racing team before jumping to Williams for the 1984 season.

Honda’s World Championship winning ways began in 1987 with their mighty engine propelling Williams Nelson Piquet to his third and final driver’s crown. This began a streak of five consecutive championships with Williams and McLaren, as the two rival British teams wrestled for Honda “Works” status during this time period.

Three Japanese drivers participated in the inaugural Japanese Grand Prix at Mount Fuji (1976-77) with a fourth joining the following year before switching venues to Suzuka owned by Honda in 1987. The fabulous Suzuka circuito was originally built as a test track in 1962 near by Honda’s immense factory.

Suzuka saw many fierce battles between championship rivals Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost. It was also here where Senna had his famous punch-up with rookie Eddie “Irv the Swerve” Irvine.

Although Suzuka hosted the Japanese Grand Prix from 1987-2006, ironically this year’s event will revert back to Mount Fuji which has been owned by Toyota since 2000 and heavily updated.

Yet with Honda’s return to Grand Prix racing in the early 1980’s, the resurgence of this Rising Sun manufacturer as a championship winning engine supplier allowed Honda to flex its powerful influence upon Formula 1. Thus triggering a new influx of Japanese drivers with Satoru Nakajima spearheading the charge, as Nakajima’s close ties with Honda helped him land the second Lotus seat alongside Ayrton Senna in 1987, after testing a Williams “mule” chassis with Honda power prior to becoming the very first full time Japanese driver in F1. He also became the first Japanese driver to score World Championship points in only his second race outing…

To continue reading, see; Japan and Formula 1 (Part 2)

Sayanora Suzuka

Holy Smokes! I still just CANNOT believe it! With 17 laps remaining, final pit stops completed and Michael Schumacher on his way towards his record 8th World Championship. Schumacher’s Ferrari V-8 engine goes “KABLAMOE!” while leading the race! Amazingly this was Schumacher’s first detonated engine failure in 6 years… (France, 2000)

Sadly this past weekend’s race in Japan appears to be Suzuka’s final race for the foreseeable future. This extremely popular circuit with F1 drivers has always had a very loyal fan base. This year’s sold out event hosted 160,000+ spectators sitting patiently through rainfall at 8AM of Friday’s practice session to see the race cars navigate the famous course.
After 20 years of hosting the Japanese Grand Prix, this wonderful circuit owned by Honda will be replaced by the massively upgraded Mount Fuji circuit owned by Japanese rival Toyota…

“The Pen is mightier than the Sword?” I can only imagine what its like to be a TV commentator under the scrutiny of a nationwide audience… Yet again I found myself frequently catching SPEED’S Bob Varsha making many ’“blunders.” During Friday’s practice session, “Messer’s” Varsha pointed out the BMW-Honda… Later during the broadcast, “my friend” Mr. Varsha further “misspoke” once again. As I sat ruing about his blunder that Lamborghini’s foray into Formula One was during a period when it was owned by GM. I always enjoy how they simply go to commercial break and continue on as though nothing wrong has happened…At least I wasn’t the only person to notice the blunder. Varsha corrected himself during Saturday’s qualifying show after an astute viewer emailed to correct him that it was Chrysler who’d owned Lamborghini instead of GM…

During Sunday’s race, Varsha commented on how Bridgestone will become F1’s sole tire supplier next season. Claiming that not only will Bridgestone provide “equal” tire’s for all competitors, but has asked the FIA to utilize it’s current Champ Car philosophy of “Alternate” red sidewall tires. This strategy would require all drivers to use the alternate (softer) tires for at least one stint during a race distance. I presume this is Bridgestone’s idea to “spice-up” the show a la Champ Cars…