Aguri Suzuki

Aguri Suzuki Formula One World Championship career Nationality Japanese Active years 1988–1995 Teams Larrousse, Zakspeed, Footwork, Jordan, Ligier Entries 88 (64 starts) Championships 0 Wins 0 Podiums 1 Career points 8 Pole positions 0 Fastest laps 0 First entry 1988 Japanese Grand Prix Last entry 1995 Japanese Grand Prix 24 Hours of Le Mans career Years 1986 - 1988, 1990, 1996 - 1999 Teams Nissan Motorsport, Toyota Team Tom's, Nismo (Nismo/TWR) Best finish 3rd (1998) Class wins 0

Aguri Suzuki (鈴木 亜久里, Suzuki Aguri, born September 8, 1960 in Tokyo) is a former racing driver from Japan. He participated in 88 Formula One Grands Prix, and his most notable achievement in racing was 3rd place at the 1990 Japanese Grand Prix. Suzuki then became involved in team ownership, with interests firstly in the Japanese Formula Nippon Championship and the IRL in partnership with Mexican racer Adrian Fernandez. Most notably however, he was the owner of the Super Aguri F1 team, which participated in Formula One from 2006 to 2008.

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 (All-Japan F3) 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 One career

In 1988, Suzuki raced in European F3000 with Footwork, before he debuted in Formula One on October 30 at his home race, replacing the ill Yannick Dalmas in the Larrousse-Lola. Zakspeed, who were using Yamaha engines, hired Suzuki for 1989, when he gained the unenviable record of failing to pre-qualify in all 16 races (at that time there were 39 entrants fighting for 26 places on the grid, so 9 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 F1 – 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 the series. The 1990 season would prove the pinnacle of Suzuki'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 one point in his races, and was criticised by Mika Salo after the two collided in Buenos Aires. Suzuka had been inextricably linked to Suzuki's F1 career and irony played its part in ensuring that was where it ended. A massive crash in practice caused a neck injury which saw him miss the race, and he immediately announced his retirement.

In F1, Suzuki achieved one podium and scored a total of eight championship points. At the time he retired, he was the second most successful Japanese driver ever in F1 after Satoru Nakajima, but Takuma Sato has since passed them both.

After Formula One

He later moved on to JGTC and remained involved in Japanese driver development. In 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.

Takuma Sato driving for Super Aguri F1 at the 2007 Malaysian Grand Prix.

From 2006 Suzuki ran 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[1]. The team overcame the hurdle of its initial entry being rejected by the FIA after not securing financial guarantees before the entry deadline, and their acceptance was not formally confirmed until January 26, 2006. The team made its debut at the Bahrain Grand Prix on 12 March 2006. On 6 May 2008, after competing in the opening four races of the season, the team withdrew from Formula One due to financial problems.

Complete Formula One results

(key)

Year	Entrant	Chassis	Engine	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	WDC	Points
1988	Larrousse Calmels	Lola LC88	Cosworth V8	BRA	SMR	MON	MEX	CAN	DET	FRA	GBR	GER	HUN	BEL	ITA	POR	ESP	JPN 16	AUS		NC	0
1989	West Zakspeed Racing	Zakspeed 891	Yamaha V8	BRA DNPQ	SMR DNPQ	MON DNPQ	MEX DNPQ	USA DNPQ	CAN DNPQ	FRA DNPQ	GBR DNPQ	GER DNPQ	HUN DNPQ	BEL DNPQ	ITA DNPQ	POR DNPQ	ESP DNPQ	JPN DNPQ	AUS DNPQ		NC	0
1990	Espo Larrousse F1	Lola LC89	Lamborghini V12	USA Ret	BRA Ret																12th	6
		Lola 90				SMR Ret	MON Ret	CAN 12	MEX Ret	FRA 7	GBR 6	GER Ret	HUN Ret	BEL Ret	ITA Ret	POR 14	ESP 6	JPN 3	AUS Ret
1991	Larrousse F1	Larrousse Lola L91	Cosworth V8	USA 6	BRA DNS	SMR Ret	MON Ret	CAN Ret	MEX Ret	FRA Ret	GBR Ret	GER Ret	HUN Ret	BEL DNQ	ITA DNQ	POR Ret	ESP DNQ	JPN Ret	AUS DNQ		22nd	1
1992	Footwork Mugen Honda	Footwork FA13	Mugen Honda V10	RSA 8	MEX DNQ	BRA Ret	ESP 7	SMR 10	MON 11	CAN DNQ	FRA Ret	GBR 12	GER Ret	HUN Ret	BEL 9	ITA Ret	POR 10	JPN 8	AUS 8		NC	0
1993	Footwork Mugen Honda	Footwork FA13B	Mugen Honda V10	RSA Ret	BRA Ret																NC	0
		Footwork FA14				EUR Ret	SMR 9	ESP 10	MON Ret	CAN 13	FRA 12	GBR Ret	GER Ret	HUN Ret	BEL Ret	ITA Ret	POR Ret	JPN Ret	AUS 7
1994	Sasol Jordan	Jordan 194	Hart V10	BRA	PAC Ret	SMR	MON	ESP	CAN	FRA	GBR	GER	HUN	BEL	ITA	POR	EUR	JPN	AUS		NC	0
1995	Ligier Gitanes Blondes	Ligier JS41	Mugen Honda V10	BRA 8	ARG Ret	SMR 11	ESP	MON	CAN	FRA	GBR	GER 6	HUN	BEL	ITA	POR	EUR	PAC Ret	JPN DNS	AUS	17th	1

See also

• Autobacs Racing Team Aguri (ARTA)
• Super Aguri F1

External links

• Official Site
• Driver profile
• Suzuki's short biography
• An article of Suzuki in French
• Suzuki featured at itv-f1.com
• Aguri Suzuki's profile and statistics at Formula One DataBase
• 2005 Super GT GT500 profile
• 2005 Super GT GT300 profile