Circuit info
Fuji Speedway
Interesting facts
The 1976 season-finale Japanese Grand Prix at the foot of Mount Fuji was run in torrential rain and thick fog, with James Hunt trailing Niki Lauda by three points going in. Lauda pulled into the pits on lap two and withdrew on safety grounds, handing Hunt the title by a single point. Mario Andretti won the race outright in his Lotus, even though several drivers had argued before the start that conditions were too dangerous to race at all; his victory came almost six years after his previous F1 win, long standing as the longest gap between a driver's first and second grand prix victories. The circuit began life as a planned American-style high-banked superspeedway, but when the designer surveyed the Mount Fuji site in 1964, he judged the steep terrain unsuitable, and consultant Stirling Moss reportedly dismissed the oval concept as 'nonsense,' proposing a European-style road course instead. At the 1977 Japanese Grand Prix, a lap-six collision between Gilles Villeneuve and Ronnie Peterson sent debris flying into a restricted trackside area, killing a marshal and a photographer who were standing there. The tragedy kept Formula 1 away from Fuji for three decades, and it led directly to the podium ceremony becoming mandatory for the top three finishers. Toyota bought a majority stake in the circuit in 2000 and had it redesigned by Hermann Tilke, reopening in 2005, the project that paved the way for Formula 1's brief 2007-2008 return. The pit straight stretches 1.475 kilometres, one of the longest in motorsport, with Mount Fuji looming in the background; poor ticket sales and bad weather ended F1's tenure after 2008. The circuit is located in Oyama, Japan. Formula 1 has raced here since 1976, with 4 races held so far, most recently in 2008. The first race here was won by Mario Andretti, in 1976. The most recent winner here was Fernando Alonso, in 2008. Among constructors, McLaren has been the most successful here, with 2 wins. The lap record here is held by Felipe Massa, at 1:18.426 (Ferrari, 2008).