Two out of three: The Japanese F1 drivers who scored a home podium

It’s been a long time since a Japanese driver had a seat at a top team, let alone a proper top team. When Satoru Nakajima drove for Lotus in 1987 and 1988, it was in the middle of a decade-long decline; in 2004 Takuma Sato finished on the podium in the US GP at Indianapolis, but his BAR team didn’t register a victory that season. Now Yuki Tsunoda finds himself in that one-of-a-kind position — and with the additional pressure and scrutiny of making his first race appearance for that team in his home grand prix.

In the 50 years since Hiroshi Fushida became the first Japanese driver to qualify for a grand prix, 17 others have made it to the grid with varying degrees of success. Tsunoda, the 19th Japanese F1 driver to enter the fold, and is perhaps the strongest candidate thus far.
 
While Nakajima had his critics, and was regularly outpaced by Lotus teammates Ayrton Senna and Nelson Piquet, he drove from the back of the grid to fourth place in wretchedly wet conditions in Australia in 1989, setting fastest lap along the way, just hours after being informed his mother had died. But it was other Japanese drivers in more humble machinery that provided one of F1’s interesting statistical quirks: of the three podiums scored by Japanese races, two have come on home soil. 
 
Let’s take a look at those two sincerely special moments which surely fueled one of the most passionate fanbases in F1. 

Japan 1990: Aguri Suzuki comes in under the radar

It’s unfortunate for Aguri Suzuki that the 1990 Japanese Grand Prix is rarely remembered as the first time a Japanese driver stepped onto the podium. Another occurence commanded the headlines that day: Ayrton Senna taking out Alain Prost at the first corner.
 
The day began with Senna frustrated that his pole position had not been moved to the clean side of the track (FIA president Jean-Marie Balestre reversed a decision by the stewards to move it). With that set, he was then determined to ensure Prost would not reach the first corner in the lead, no matter what. Mission accomplished — Senna secured the title, but at a cost of furthering those chaotic ripples throughout the rest of the field.
 
With the two title contenders out of the race, the show went on. On the second lap, Gerhard Berger – Senna’s teammate and the new race leader – made a mistake at the first corner, skidding on dirt and gravel left from the Senna-Prost collision. He would have to retire.
 
This left Nigel Mansell, Prost’s teammate, in control, ahead of the Benettons of Nelson Piquet and RRoberto Moreno, the Williams cars of Thierry Boutsen and Riccardo Patrese, the Lotus of Derek Warwick, and Suzuki in the Lola-Lamborghini entered by Le Mans winner and ex-F1 driver Gerard Larrousse. Suzuki quickly passed Warwick to move into the points (back then, only the top six drivers scored) by lap seven.
 
In this era Goodyear supplied tyres to most of the grid and offered a family of four different dry-weather compounds. Typically Benetton ran a compound one step harder than the rest and planned not to stop for new tyres, a strategy facilitated by the relative lightness and lower power of the B190’s Ford V8 engine.
 
Mansell therefore pushed as hard as he could to build a 10-second lead before pitting for new tyres on lap 26. Eager to minimise time loss in the pits, he mashed the throttle as soon as his car came off the jacks, spinning up the rear wheels so fiercely it snapped a driveshaft. Mansell was forced to retire, which also meant his Ferrari team lost the constructors’ championship for McLaren.
 
This put Piquet in the lead — four seconds ahead of teammate Moreno, and 12 seconds ahead of Patrese. All Piquet had to do was manage his car — a task well within the three-time world champion’s wheelhouse. Suzuki, meanwhile, had changed tyres and lay in fourth place, nearly 20 seconds behind Patrese. 
 
But the gap was closing, and the Williams driver was also expected to make a pitstop.
 
Patrese duly headed for the pitlane on lap 37, elevating Suzuki and his Larrousse to a podium position. Carefully managing his fuel consumption – following instructions displayed on his team’s pit board to avoid running out – Suzuki calmly held off the recovering Williams to secure the first-ever Formula 1 podium for a Japanese driver.
 
This moment was not lost on the crowd, which roared with approval. The underrated Nakajima added a further spritz to the celebrations by finishing sixth in his Tyrrell.

Japan 2012: Kamui Kobayashi‘s Almost Uneventful Triumph

Kamui Kobayashi, Sauber C31

Photo by: Sutton Images

Kamui Kobayashi had already done the heavy lifting on Saturday at Suzuka, qualifying his Sauber in fourth place. But he did so under the shadow of a stewards’ investigation, having set his fastest time while yellow flags were waving at the Spoon Curve to cover Kimi Raikkonen’s Lotus, which had spun off.
 
To his rivals’ chagrin, Kobayashi was let off on account of him going no faster than before through the actual sector where the yellow was being shown. Not only that, he was promoted to third when McLaren’s Jenson Button was penalised five places for a gearbox change. 
 
Although calendar changes meant the Japanese Grand Prix was no longer the last or penultimate round of the season – it was race 15 of 20 – the stakes remained high in a closely contested championship. Seven different drivers had won the first seven rounds of the season and Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso had a 29-point lead despite not having the fastest car.
 
At race start, the almost inevitable first-corner shunt was less dramatic than the one which helped begat Aguri Suzuki’s podium finish more than 20 years earlier in 1990, yet it still included two of the championship’s protagonists. Alonso was eliminated as a result of contact with Kimi Raikkonen’s Lotus.
 
Kobayashi, though, was already up the road, having made an excellent getaway to slot between the Red Bulls of polesitter Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber. The Australian (Webber) was slow enough away from his grid spot to cause the field to collide into the second turn, where he was bundled off-track by Raikkonen’s teammate, Romain Grosjean.
 
This one of several incidents which prompted Webber to label Grosjean a “first-lap nutcase”.
 
Holding second place, Kobayashi spent the race resisting immense pressure from Button, who had quickly recovered and was now in podium contention after the opening-lap chaos. After both drivers completed their pitstops, they rejoined in the same order but lost time behind slower cars. The only remaining Ferrari, driven by Felipe Massa, executed a well-timed strategy with a longer first stint, allowing him to rejoin ahead of Kobayashi on lap 18.
 
In the closing laps, Button’s mounted heavy pressure, but Kobayashi made no mistakes and crossed the finish line just half a second ahead of the 2009 world champion. This crowd-pleasing moment was both the last F1 podium for a Japanese driver and the last for Sauber.