Hiroshi Fushida (鮒子田 寛, , born 10 March 1946 in Kyoto) is a former racing driver from Japan.
He unsuccessfully entered two Formula One Grands Prix with Maki, the first in The Netherlands in 1975 where a blown engine prevented him from starting, and the second at the British GP the same year, where he failed to qualify.
He placed first in Class C and fifth overall, partnering Don Holland, in the 1975 Hardie Ferodo 1000.
After retiring from racing he worked for the TOM’S tuning company in Japan, before moving to the UK to oversee the companys entry in British F3, and later Endurance Racing and the BTCC as an official Toyota supported team. Fushida retired to Japan in the 2010’s. Info from Wiki
Bio from Dome
Fushida studied at Doshisha Junior High School in the same school year as Minoru Hayashi. They shared the same interests; audio equipments and motorcycles, that united them. Even after the graduation from the school, they kept a close friendship as both of them were busy with part-time jobs to make their ambitions in motor racing, Fushida as a racecar driver and Hayashi as a racecar constructor, become true.
By the time when Hayashi started to design and build “Karasu” having met Tojiro Ukiya at Suzuka, Fushida had already started his career as a professional racecar driver at Honda. He then moved to the Toyota works team, set the world speed record driving a Toyota 2000GT, raced in many GP races including Japanese GP’s driving a Toyota 7, and won many of the races.
Fushida won the Fuji Grand Champion Series title in 1972. He also competed many races in abroad such as F1 GP, Le Mans 24 Hours, Formula A in the USA and Tans-Am.
Since his retirement as a racecar driver, Fushida has worked as the vice-president of Dome, the team manager at TOM’S, the president of TOM’S GB before 1992. Although Audi purchased TOM’S GB in 1998, Fushida remained in the organisation as a director. He won the Le Mans 24 Hours in 2003 as the Bentley team epresentative.
Returning to Japan in 2003, Fushida became the team manager at INGING. He then moved back to Dome in 2007, and worked for the Le Mans project.
Since 2009, Fushida has been an advisor at “aim” and the JMIA. He has also been an advisor at the GT Associations since 2012.
When you make your way back to the 1960s, they are many snapshots of his career that highly stand out such as the now well-known green and yellow 2000GT that he drove alongside his Toyota teammates to accumulate many speed records at the Yatabe test course in 1966, a Toyota 1-2 finish alongside Tomohiko Tsutsumi at the inaugural Fuji 24 hour endurance behind his teammates Shihomi Hosoya & Yoshio Otsubo in 1967.
He also took victory at the Suzuka 1000km endurance in 1968 with the Toyota 7 (415) alongside Sachio Fukuzawa and in 1971 respectively with a Porsche 910 alongside Yoshimasa Kawaguchi. Through 1968 he took part in a lot of smaller-scale events with good results and finished 8th place at Fuji Can-Am 200 Miles with the 415S. The five Toyota factory drivers that participated would finish in the top ten.
In 1974 he attained 10th place driving a Brabham BT40-Ford at the Japan Formula 2000 Championship at one race and following on from that in 1975 he would enter again where he finished in 7th place over the course of four races with one podium in the March 752-BMW.
As covered in a previous post regarding the Maki Engineering Team, where they entered two Formula One Grands Prix’s with Fushida in the Maki F101C-Cosworth, the first in Zandvoort in 1975, where a blown engine had prevented him from starting the race. The second was the British Grand Prix later, where he failed to qualify but we can not argue that if the machinery was better than sub-par then we are sure that we should see respectable results.
1975 was not all bad news as he placed first in Class C and fifth overall with a Mazda RX-3 alongside Don Holland, in the 1975 Hardie Ferodo 1000 at the Mount Panorama Circuit. That year in the Sigma MC75-Toyota, he made his second of three Le Mans outings after 1973 with the Sigma MC73-Mazda, with his last occurring in 1981 for Mazdaspeed driving an RX-7. Fushida’s three entries at Le Mans as a driver each ended in retirements sadly.
As appointed the operations director of RTN, Fushida oversaw the very memorable Bentley Speed 8’s victory in the 2003 24 Hours of Le Mans. After the Le Mans triumph, Fushida returned to Japan again, turning his attention back to Dome, where Fushida succeeded the legendary founder Minoru Hayashi as the company president from September 2012 until his retirement in July 2015.
