#FUJI BIKES REVIEW 2013 DRIVERS#
#FUJI BIKES REVIEW 2013 PLUS#

Fuji's emergence, albeit briefly, onto the F1 calendar, plus Honda's push for top level racing in two and four wheels only served to increase this appetite. Into the 1980s, Honda was keen to see Suzuka emerge as a world venue once more. The only significant change to the circuit itself during this time came in 1976, when a wall separating the pit lane from the track was installed. Formula Two races became the major events, alongside the famous Eight Hour endurance motorcycle event, which began in 1978 and became massively important for all of the domestic Japanese manufacturers. World Championship motorcycle racing came and went in the 1960s (in tandem with Honda's participation) and Suzuka settled into its role as principle test venue for Honda's two and four-wheeled machines. He received serious burns – thankfully from which he later recovered – but the Japanese named the corner after him in an act of thankfulness that the consequences weren't worse. Warr would later achieve more success as Lotus team manager.ĭuring the first motorcycle events at the circuit, East German rider Ernst Degner – who had defected to Japan to ride for the Suzuki teams – was seriously injured in a crash at fast corner prior to the bridge underpass. Among the first car races at the new venue was sportscar 'Grand Prix', won by Peter Warr in a Lotus 23. Where the new track was planned, all the rice fields had been bulldozered away! The local farmers had been paid off by Honda and been given other sites for their fields.'įinal designs included only one cross-over and the completed circuit opened for business in September 1962. 'So my father went back to the Honda office, made some changes and two or three days later they had another visit to the site. But Mr Honda said: 'Tell me where you want the track, and we'll sort it out'. Once over the site, my father's first thought was that almost any design in that area would be impossible because of the many rice fields. 'After the first sketches were made, they went to inspect the site with Mr Honda by helicopter. Indeed the first plans included not one crossover, but three, with the track zig-zagging around itself after the first few corners, with a complex of hairpin bends on the site of what is now the famous 'Esses'. However, my father's opinion always was that a racing circuit must have a combination of different corners and challenges, so a cross-over was certainly possible.' As there were quite a number of hills and existing roads between the rice fields, he made a design that would give the least amount of earth to be moved, including the cross-over which was, and is, very unusual for a circuit. There was a 3D model of the site as well. Hugenholtz's son, sometime GT racer Hans, takes up the story: 'My father went there and had a number of staff to help him and was given the plans of a large site. So it was that one day in 1961 Dutchman John Hugenholtz, who had designed the Zandvoort circuit, received a telegram out of the blue. In typical fashion, Honda was keen to produce a world-beating venue and realised he required additional expertise to realise his ambitions in full.

The circuit was flat but likely to have been fast, thanks to several long straights. Mr Honda had penned an initial circuit layout based around a lake complex.

Land was purchased for this purpose in 1959 and construction work began the following year. The solution, therefore, was to build their own. Mr Honda saw racing as the perfect test bed and promotional tool for his proucts, but Japanese infrastructure lagged behind the Western world, with few paved roads and fewer still permanent racing facilities. The company had begun racing in Japan in the early 1950s and internationally by the late 1950s.

Plans for a racing facility among the paddy fields outside Suzuka City were first laid in the early 1960s by Soichiro Honda, founder of the car and motorcycle manufacturer. It has also gained world recognition because of its unusual figure-of-eight layout, which has spawned countless Scalextric imitations!

#FUJI BIKES REVIEW 2013 DRIVERS#

Drivers rate it highly, mainly because it is one of the few circuits these days which still has challenges to throw at them. The Honda-owned race course at Suzuka has emerged as one of the world's most demanding and rewarding motor racing circuits, packing a mix of almost every type of corner into a remarkably small space. Address: Suzuka Circuit, 510-0295 Suzuka, Mie Prefecture, Ino-cho 7992, Japan

Fuji bikes review 2013