Aguri Suzuki

Aguri Suzuki In 2008, as the supervisor of ARTA. Born (1960-09-08) 8 September 1960 Tokyo, Japan 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 Participating 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 8 September 1960) is a Japanese former racing driver. 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. He is now the owner and chairman of Amlin Aguri team, racing in the newly established Formula E.

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).

Suzuki demonstrates his Larrousse-Lola 90 at Suzuka in 2012 - the scene of his podium finish 22 years earlier.

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,^[1] 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 and Kamui Kobayashi 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 HSV-10 GT 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.^[2] 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 26 January 2006.^[3] 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.^[4]

Helmet

Suzuki's helmet is white with a red line with black sides surrounding the top, a red and black line going from the Rear down the chin (forming an A) and a black circle on the top.

Racing record

Japanese Top Formula Championship results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Complete 24 Hours of Le Mans results

Year	Team	Co-Drivers	Car	Class	Laps	Pos.	Class Pos.
1986	Nissan Motorsports	Kazuyoshi Hoshino Keiji Matsumoto	Nissan R86V	C1	64	DNF	DNF
1987	Nissan Motorsports	Masahiro Hasemi Takao Wada	Nissan 87E	C1	117	DNF	DNF
1988	Nissan Motorsports	Kazuyoshi Hoshino Takao Wada	Nissan (March) R88C	C1	286	DNF	DNF
1990	Toyota Team TOM'S	Johnny Dumfries Roberto Ravaglia	Toyota 90C-V	C1	64	DNF	DNF
1996	NISMO	Masahiko Kageyama Masahiko Kondo	Nissan Skyline GT-R LM	GT1	209	DNF	DNF
1997	Nissan Motorsports TWR	Riccardo Patrese Eric van de Poele	Nissan R390 GT1	GT1	121	DNF	DNF
1998	Nissan Motorsports TWR	Kazuyoshi Hoshino Masahiko Kageyama	Nissan R390 GT1	GT1	347	3rd	3rd
1999	Nissan Motorsports	Masami Kageyama Eric van de Poele	Nissan R391	LMP	0	DNS	DNS

Complete International Formula 3000 results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap.)

Complete Formula One results

(key)

See also

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

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Aguri Suzuki.

• 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

Super Aguri F1 Team
Founder Aguri Suzuki Personnel Mark Preston Daniele Audetto Drivers Takuma Sato Anthony Davidson Yuji Ide Franck Montagny Sakon Yamamoto Formula One cars SA05 SA06 SA07 SA08

Zakspeed
Founder	Erich Zakowski
Drivers	Jonathan Palmer  Huub Rothengatter  Martin Brundle  Christian Danner  Piercarlo Ghinzani  Bernd Schneider  Aguri Suzuki
Formula One cars	841 861 871 881 891

Arrows
Arrows Grand Prix International	Personnel Franco Ambrosio Alan Rees Jackie Oliver Tony Southgate Cars FA1 A1 A1B A2 A3 A4 A5 A6 A7 A8 A9 A10 A10B A11 A11B Notable drivers Riccardo Patrese Derek Warwick Eddie Cheever Thierry Boutsen
Footwork Arrows	Personnel Wataru Ohashi Jackie Oliver Alan Jenkins Notable Drivers Aguri Suzuki Michele Alboreto Cars A11C FA12 FA12C FA13 FA13B FA14 FA15 FA16 FA17
TWR Arrows	Personnel Tom Walkinshaw Cars A18 A19 A20 A21 A22 A23 Notable drivers Damon Hill Heinz-Harald Frentzen