25 years of Suzuka and 60 years of Saturo Nakajima
The night-time F1 joggers were slightly taken aback when they were suddenly overtaken by two Formula 1 racing cars. In complete darkness, the two Nakajima sons Kazuki and Daisuke drove two laps around the Suzuka circuit in their father's Tyrrell and Lotus before stopping for interviews with their father on the start-finish straight.
The 25th anniversary of the Suzuka Circuit and 60 years of Saturo Nakajima were celebrated on the weekend of the F1 Japanese Grand Prix!
Saturo Nakajima (60) drove for Lotus and Tyrrell in F1 from 1987-1991. He scored a total of 16 world championship points in 74 starts. His best result was a 4th place in both the 1987 British GP and the 1989 Australian GP. After his active Grand Prix career with two 4th places, he founded the Nakajima Racing Team, which won the Formula Nippon championship title with Tom Coronel in 1999, Toranosuke Takagi in 2000 and Ralph Firman in 2002.
His two sons Kazuki and Daisuke are also racing drivers. Kazukio, who was born on January 11, 1985, sat in the Williams F1 cockpit from 2007 to 2009 and scored a total of 9 world championship points in 36 starts.
As it is customary in Japan for spectators to remain in the grandstand until the very last garage door is closed, any change on the track, for example in the form of Nakajima's old racing cars(Lotus 101 from 1989 and Tyrrell 019 from 1990), is welcome. There are actually three countries on this earth where the "real" F1 fans are at home and these are England, Italy and Japan.
Jenson Button confirmed this to the enthusiastic crowd in the grandstand: "I always enjoy coming to you, because I find the real race fans here and not in Monte-Carlo.
The Japanese thanked him with loud applause. For once, Sebastian Vettel was not booed again as the winner, but duly celebrated. In no other country does each of the 22 drivers have such a large fan base as here in Japan.
Honda showed the McLaren MP 4-7 from 1992 with a Honda engine to draw attention to its imminent return to Formula 1. In 2015, Honda is bringing the Japanese back to the GP circuit. The new Honda turbo engine will power the McLaren from 2015. They were already involved in the first turbo era and won the world championship in 1987 (Williams) and 1988 (McLaren).
More pictures of the three racing cars shown can be found in the Zwischengas archive.
