Aguri Suzuki

Born in Tokyo, Japan, on the 8th September 1960, Aguri Suzuki participated in 88 Grands Prix (with 65 starts) for Larrousse, Zakspeed, Footwork, Jordan and Ligier, with his best result third in Japan in 1990. He contested 8 Le Mans races for Nissan Motorsport, Toyota Team Tom’s, Nismo (Nismo/TWR), with his best finish third in 1998. He later became involved in team ownership, forming the Autobacs Racing Team Aguri, the Super Aguri F1 team and Team Aguri Formula E.

Aguri began racing karts in 1972 and won 1978’s Japanese kart championship then contested several Japanese F3 races with a Ralt RT1 in 1980 and 1981. He continued in karting and was again Japanese Kart Champion in 1981 while in 1982 he contested nine F3 races with a Hayashi 320-Toyota and had five podiums plus was fifth (second in class) teamed with Nobuhide Tachi and Kauro Hoshino in the Fuji 6 hours with a Tom’s Racing Toyota Celica.

He finished second in 1983’s All-Japan F3 series with a Hayashi 321-Toyota, with two wins and five podiums in the seven race series, plus three poles and one fastest lap. In the following year he had a win and a podium with a March 793 in Japanese F3 to finish seventh in the championship and away from F3 was thirteenth with an MCS 5 at the 250km Fuji and also had one race in the All Japan Sports Prototype Championship with Autobac’s Dome RC83i.

Racing an NC Speed MSC 5 in 1985 he was sixth and eighteenth at Fuji plus fifteenth and eighth at Fuji with an MCS 6. He was eighth with Central 20 Racing Team’s Lola T810 in the Fuji 1000kms with Haruhito Yanagida though retired a Ralt RT30 from the Macau F3 race.

From there he moved to touring cars and he and Takao Wada took the Japanese title in 1986, with a Skyline RS Turbo, winning at Mine, finishing second at Sugo and Tsukuba, sixth at Sendai, fourth at Fuji and they won the last round at Suzuka, giving Nissan their first championship. Also that year he made his debut in Japanese F2 though his Le Mans debut with a Nissan R85V alongside Kazuyoshi Hoshino and Meiji Matsumoto ended in retirement after 64 laps due to gearbox problems. He was sixth, fifth and twelfth at outings in a Nissan R86V with an MCS 6 he and Matsumoto were fifth and twelfth in the 1000km and 500 Mile Fuji races.

Contesting 1987’s Japanese F3000 series with Footwork Racing International’s March 87B, with each round having two races he took three wins at Suzuka, was fourth and fifth at Fuji and Sugo and had nine podiums, finishing second in the championship to Kazuyoshi Hoshino. He retired on his Le Mans return with a Nissan R87E alongside Masahiro Hasemi and Takao Wada and drives alongside Hasemi for Hasemi Motorsport saw eighth in the 500km Suzuka with a Nissan R86V plus twenty second at the 1000km Suzuka and eighth in the 500km Fuji in an R87E. Fuji Grand Championship drives with Footwork Sports Racing Team’s MCS 7 produced fourth, third (twice) and seventh.

He went a step better in the following year and took the F3000 title with Footwork’s March 88B from rival Hoshino, beating him by two points. He finished second at Suzuka (plus fastest lap), won both races at the next three rounds at Fuji, Mine (from pole and taking fastest lap) and Suzuka (from pole), was fourth at Sugo and fourth and second at Fuji. He was in a Reynard for the last two rounds at Suzuka where he finished third, second and fourth. He contested three International F3000 rounds and was eleventh at Pau though did not qualify at Silverstone and retired due to an accident at Brands Hatch. In Nissan R88C drives with Masahiro Hasemi they were third at the 500 Mile Fuji and 1000km Suzuka, ninth in the 500km Suzuka and twelfth in the Fuji 1000kms (joined by Allan Grice). Teamed with Kazuyoshi Hoshino and Takao Wada, their Le Mans race ended due to engine problems after 286 laps. While on his way to winning the F3000 championship, which had its last round in November, he made his F1 debut in October for Larrousse, after Yannick Dalmas was declared medically unfit for the Japanese GP. Yannick was originally thought to have an ear infection, that kept him out of this and the final race in Australia, but was diagnosed with Legionnaires’ disease later in the year. Aguri qualified twentieth, one place behind teammate Philippe Alliot and came home sixteenth after two spins.

Zakspeed hired him for 1989 but it proved a frustrating season and the team withdrew from F1 at the end of the year. They had been in F1 since 1985, but despite their engineering expertise, their best result had been Martin Brundle’s fifth place in 1987 at San Marino. For this season they used Yamaha engines as turbos were banned and Aguri failed to pre-qualify the 891 in all sixteen races and Bernd Schneider only qualified the car twice and retired both times. In World Sportscar outings with the Tom’s Racing Toyota 90C-V he did not start at Spa due to an accident, retired at Monza (alongside Geoff Lees) and Le Mans (with Johnny Dumfries and Roberto Ravaglia) due to an accident and his only finish was twentieth at Suzuka with Dumfries.

Aguri began the first of his two seasons with Larrousse in 1990 and it proved to be the team’s best in F1, despite having to pre-qualify during the first half of the season. However, with an improving Lamborghini engine and a chassis considered among the best in the field, pre-qualifying was never really a problem and qualifying positions within the top 10 became more and more frequent as the season progressed. Racing the Lamborghini powered Lola LC90, which debuted at San Marino (replacing the updated 1989 car, the LC89B, which was used in the opening two rounds) he was sixth in Great Britain and Spain, seventh in France and fourteenth in Portugal. Then at Suzuka he became the first Japanese driver to stand on an F1 podium. He qualified tenth but Jean Alesi, who had qualified fourth, had to miss the race due to an injury and Aguri moved to ninth place on the grid. He raced well and steadily made his way to the front and finished third behind the Benettons of Nelson Piquet and Roberto Moreno. Satoru Nakajima made it two Japanese drivers in the points by finishing sixth in the Tyrrell. Aguri later recalled “I made a reasonable start from tenth on the grid, but all I remember about the first corner is the dust-it was absolutely everywhere and I had no idea who had gone off. It was only on the second lap that I was able to see the cars of Senna and Prost. Senna was very popular in Japan and before the start I noticed how many Brazilian flags were waving in the grandstands. I was thinking,‘We have two Japanese drivers on the grid (Nakajima finished sixth) but there are hardly any Japanese flags.’ After the race, though, I looked down from the podium and there were Japanese flags everywhere. I wondered where they had all come from, but there was always a very special atmosphere at Suzuka and standing up there was a wonderful moment.” With the points he also scored at the British and Spanish races, and team-mate Eric Bernard’s points at Monaco, Britain and Hungary, the team ended the year with 11 points and finished sixth in the Constructors’ Championship but 1991 would be a different matter.

Larrousse lost their Lamborghini engines for the following season but they also had their points from 1990 deducted by the FIA. Aguri finished sixth with the Ford powered LC91 in the first race at Phoenix but did not start in Brazil due to fuel pump failure and never made the chequered flag for the rest of the season. He retired with a broken gearbox in Belgium, had engine failures in Monaco, Hungary, Germany and Japan, transmission failures in France and Portugal while a fuel leak caused a fire in Canada. He spun off in the wet conditions in San Marino and was out after colliding with Jean Alesi’s Ferrari in Great Britain and did not qualify in Belgium, Monza, Spain and Australia.

In 1992 he was at Footwork alongside Michele Alboreto and started with an eighth place result with the FA13 in the first race in South Africa. Later finishes included seventh in Spain, tenth, eleventh and twelfth in San Marino, Monaco and Great Britain, ninth and tenth in Belgium and Portugal then eighth in Japan and Australia. He was retained by the team for 1993, racing the FA14, which replaced the FA13B (a revised version of the previous year’s FA13 chassis) that was used for the first two races. Aguri had a collision and an accident in the first races in South Africa and Brazil, followed by gearbox failure in the European GP at Donington. He was ninth and tenth in San Marino and Spain and later finishes saw thirteenth in Canada, twelfth in France and seventh in the final race in Australia. However, his improvement throughout the season was marked; after qualifying on the back row at Donington, he qualified sixth at Spa and was running fifth until he suffered gearbox issues and was seventh in the final race at Adelaide, although he and Derek Warwick collided at the first corner at Monza.

There was a Jordan drive in 1994 when he was called up to stand in for Eddie Irvine at the Pacific GP. The FIA had given Irvine a one race suspension after having been deemed the cause of an accident in Brazil that also involved Jos Verstappen, Eric Bernard and Martin Brundle. Although the team appealed the decision, his punishment was increased to a three race ban. After qualifying twentieth, of the twenty six qualifiers, steering issues after forty four laps ended Aguri’s race.

1995 saw him at Ligier alongside Olivier Panis, but though Panis raced the whole season, Aguri shared the Mugen-Honda powered JS41 with Martin Brundle and only contested five races. In the first three races he was eighth in Brazil, retired in Argentina and was eleventh at Imola though Brundle was in the car for the next five races. He was back in Germany, where he finished sixth, then missed five races but retired in the Pacific GP at Aida and a massive crash in practice for the Japanese GP caused a neck injury which saw him miss the race.

This proved to be his last F1 outing and in the ollowing year he raced a Nismo Team Zexel Nissan Skyline GT-R in the All Japan Grand Touring Car championship. He and Hideo Fukuyama were third at Suzuka, Mine and in an All Star non-championship race at Central circuit, fourth and fifth at Suzuka and Sugo and seventh at Sendai. Teamed with Masahiko Kageyama and Masanori Sekiya, the team contested Le Mans though their race ended due to an accident on lap 209. He raced in the final round of the International Touring Car championship at Suzuka with a Mercedes C Class and was eleventh in the first race though did not start the second.

There was disappointment on a return to Le Mans in 1997 with a Nissan R390 as he, Eric Van de Poele and Riccardo Patrese retired after 121 laps (gearbox) though he was seventh in the Suzuka 1000kms with AMG Mercedes’ CLK GTR with Alex Wurz and Bernd Schneider. In the GT All-Star race at Motegi, after winning the first of the two races, in the second team mate Comas once again took the lead after starting from the pole. After the pit stop for a driver change and fuel, Aguri rejoined the race, leading the field and he maintained it to the flag. The team scored a perfect victory for the weekend after taking firsts in qualifying and both races. He continued with the Skyline GT-R in the next two years, first alongside Masahiko Kageyama then Michael Krumm, and in 1998 had his best ever result at Le Mans, finishing third with the Nissan R390 alongside Kageyama and Kazuyoshi Hoshino.

During this time he had been involved in Japanese driver development, forming Autobacs Racing Team Aguri (ARTA) in 1997, which was active in Formula Nippon and Super GT and they also held a youth kart racing competition, the ‘ARTA Challenge’, to find the next generation of competitive race drivers. He later became involved in IndyCar, when, in 2005 Fernandez Racing had two teams under their banner; Delphi Fernandez Racing, which ran Scott Sharp, and Super Aguri Fernandez Racing, co-owned by Aguri, that ran Kosuke Matsuura. In 2007, they switched their support from Fernandez to Panther Racing and signed Hideki Mutoh to race in the Indy Pro Series developmental league.

In 2005, talks began about starting a Super Aguri F1 team and they registered their intention to enter the World Championship. However, the FIA’s official press release of the entry list for 2006 confirmed that it had not approved Super Aguri’s entry. Having missed the initial registration, they needed to convince the other teams to agree to its entry, and after eventually receiving the unanimous agreement, their entry was confirmed by the FIA in late January 2006. The SA05 used customer Honda engines and though the team announced plans to produce a new chassis later in the season, this never came into fruition and they updated their older chassis to become the SA06, which first raced in the German GP. The team’s improving form saw an impressive tenth place in Brazil from Takuma Sato. Sato and Anthony Davidson were their drivers in 2007 but the team suffered a major setback when their car failed the FIA crash test and the SA07 was only unveiled less than 48 hours before the first practice session for the Australian Grand Prix. Sato and Davidson surprised people by qualifying tenth and eleventh though Sato was twelfth at the finish. Davidson’s race was ruined on the first lap when a Spyker collided with him; his car was thrown into the air, severely jarring his back upon landing but he finished sixteenth and was taken to hospital after the race. The team scored its first points at the Spanish GP when Sato finished eighth then in Canada he recorded the team’s highest finish, coming home sixth and taking three points. TV commentators stated that had it not been for a botched pit stop, he may have finished as high as fourth but though Davidson looked set to take points, he was forced to pit after hitting a gopher which ran across the track. Unfortunately, 2008 started badly for them as although the SA08 passed its mandatory FIA crash test, the car’s launch was cancelled and the team did not attend the final pre-season test at Catalunya. At the first race in Australia, both cars retired, with Davidson’s due to a collision and Sato suffered transmission failure on lap thirty two. Both SA08’s were able to finish in Malaysia, with Davidson fifteenth and Sato sixteenth while in Bahrain, Sato was seventeenth and Davidson sixteenth. The Spanish GP would be Super Aguri’s final GP and Davidson was forced to retire on lap twenty one while Sato was the final classified car in thirteenth. On arrival at the circuit for the Turkish GP, the team’s trucks and motorhomes were denied entry to the circuit. Aguri announced that they were to withdraw from the World Championship due to financial problems and in early May it was confirmed that the team had gone into administration.

Several years later, Team Aguri (created by Aguri and Mark Preston) signed up in November 2013 to race in 2014’s inaugural season of Formula E. With Amlin insurance as their title sponsor the team competed as Amlin Aguri. Felix da Costa took the team’s first win in Buenos Aires and they finished seventh in the championship. For the 2015 season, as the Amlin sponsorship had ended, they raced as Team Aguri but they did not score any podium finishes and were eighth in the championship. At the end of the season, the team was sold to China Media Capital and renamed Techeetah but though a number of key management figures stayed at the team, Aguri stepped down.