Aguri Suzuki

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Aguri Suzuki

Aguri Suzuki (鈴木 亜久里) (born September 8, 1960) is a former Formula One driver from Japan. He participated in 88 grands prix, and most notable achievement in racing was 3rd place at 1990 Japanese Grand Prix. Aguri is also the owner of Super Aguri F1 team, which is participating in the Formula 1 championship in 2006.

Contents

1 Career

1.1 Early career
1.2 Formula 1 Career
1.3 After Formula 1
1.4 Complete Formula One results

2 External links

Career

Early career

Suzuki began racing karts in 1972, at the age of 12. In 1978 he won the Japanese kart championship and in 1979 made his debut in the Japanese Formula Three championship. He continued in karting and in 1981 was again Japanese Kart Champion. In 1983 he finished second in the All-Japan F3 series, driving a Hayashi-Toyota. He then turned to touring car racing and, driving for the Nissan factory team won the Japanese title in 1986. The same year he made his debut in Japanese F2 and drove in the Le Mans 24 Hours. In 1987 he finished runner-up in the Japanese F3000 series, winning one race (Suzuka). In 1988, driving a March-Yamaha he won the title with three wins (Fuji, Nishi-Nippon and Suzuka).

Formula 1 Career

In 1988 Suzuka raced in European F3000 with the Footwork team, but he finally debuted in Formula 1 on October 30, 1988 for his home race, replacing the ill Yannick Dalmas in Larrousse team, which then ran Lola cars. As the Zakspeed team was running Yamaha engines in 1989, they hired Aguri, but he gained the unwanted record of failing to pre-qualify in all 16 races (at that time there were 38 entrants fighting for 26 places on the grid, so 8 uncompetitive cars were removed on Friday morning).

For 1990 and 1991 he drove again for Larrousse. Three sixth-places were dwarfed by 3rd place at Suzuka - the first ever podium for an Asian driver in Formula 1 – which turned him into a local hero. He also set the second fastest lap, and observers began to think seriously about a Japanese contender in Formula 1. But the 1990 season would prove to be the pinnacle of Aguri's racing career.

In 1992 and 1993 he was at Footwork alongside Michele Alboreto and then Derek Warwick, but both usually outperformed him. He shared a Ligier with Martin Brundle in 1995, but only scored 1 point in his races, and was criticised by Mika Salo after the two collided in Buenos Aires. Suzuka had been inextricably linked to Aguri's F1 career and irony played it's part in ensuring that's where it ended. A massive crash in practice and a subsequent neck injury saw him miss the race, and he immediately announced his retirement.

In Formula 1 he achieved 1 podium, and scored a total of 8 championship points. At the time he retired, he was most successful Japanese driver ever in Formula 1, but Takuma Sato has later taken the glory.

After Formula 1

He later move on to JGTC and remained involved in Japanese driver development. In the 2000, with long term sponsor Autobacs, he would run the ARTA (Autobacs Racing Team Aguri) who despite winning the GT300 title in 2002, would expand to DTM a season later and launched Super Aguri Fernandez Racing with Adrian Fernandez, running cars in the IRL. Aguri still competes in both categories in Super GT, with team director/former driver Keiichi Tsuchiya managing the GT300 class, running the ASL Garaiya, a car his main sponsor helped to fund and develop. They race a Honda NSX in the GT500 class.

From 2006 Suzuki is running the Super Aguri F1 Formula One team with the backing of Honda. He managed to put together his new team in just four and half months from his initial announcement on 1 November 2005[link]. The team overcame the hurdle of his initial entry being rejected by the FIA after not securing financial guarantees in time for regular entry bid and was not formally confirmed until January 26 2006. Suzuki was able to see his team make it's debut at the Bahrain Grand Prix on 15 March 2006.

Complete Formula One results

(Note: grands prix in bold denote points scoring races.)

Yr	Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	Team
1988	Lola	BRA	SAN	MON	MEX	CAN	SAE	FRA	GBR	DEU	HUN	BEL	ITA	POR	SPA	JPN	AUS		Lola
1989	Zaks	BRA	SAN	MON	MEX	USA	CAN	FRA	GBR	DEU	HUN	BEL	ITA	POR	SPA	JPN	AUS		Zaks
1990	Lola	USA	BRA	SAN	MON	CAN	MEX	FRA	GBR	DEU	HUN	BEL	ITA	POR	SPA	JPN	AUS		Lola
1991	Lola	USA	BRA	SAN	MON	CAN	MEX	FRA	GBR	DEU	HUN	BEL	ITA	POR	SPA	JPN	AUS		Lola
1992	Foot	SAF	MEX	BRA	SPA	SAN	MON	CAN	FRA	GBR	DEU	HUN	BEL	ITA	POR	JPN	AUS		Foot
1993	Foot	SAF	BRA	EUR	SAN	SPA	MON	CAN	FRA	GBR	DEU	HUN	BEL	ITA	POR	JPN	AUS		Foot
1994	Jord	BRA	PAC	SAN	MON	SPA	CAN	FRA	GBR	DEU	HUN	BEL	ITA	POR	EUR	JPN	AUS		Jord
1995	Ligi	BRA	ARG	SAN	SPA	MON	CAN	FRA	GBR	DEU	HUN	BEL	ITA	POR	EUR	PAC	JPN	AUS	Ligi

External links

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