Aguri Suzuki

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Aguri Suzuki

Nationality	Japanese
World Championship Career
Active years	1988 - 1995
Team(s)	Lola, Zakspeed, Footwork, Jordan, Ligier
Races	88
Championships	0
Wins	0
Podium finishes	1

Pole positions	0
Fastest laps	0
First race	1988 Japanese Grand Prix
First win	n/a
Last win	n/a
Last race	1995 Japanese Grand Prix

Aguri Suzuki (鈴木亜久里, Suzuki Aguri^?, born September 8, 1960 in Tokyo) is a former Formula One driver from Japan. He participated in 88 grands prix, and most notable achievement in racing was 3rd place at 1990 Japanese Grand Prix. Aguri is now the owner of Super Aguri F1 team, which has been participating in F1 since 2006.

1 Career
2 Complete F1 Results
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] Career

[edit] 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 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).

[edit] Formula One Career

In 1988 Suzuki raced in European F3000 with the Footwork team, but he finally debuted in Formula One on October 30, 1988 for his home race, replacing the ill Yannick Dalmas in Larrousse team, which then ran Lola cars. As the Zakspeed team was running Yamaha engines in 1989, they hired Aguri, but he gained the unwanted record of failing to pre-qualify in all 16 races (at that time there were 38 entrants fighting for 26 places on the grid, so 8 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. But the 1990 season would prove to be the pinnacle of Aguri'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 Aguri'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 most successful Japanese driver ever in F1, besting Satoru Nakajima, but Takuma Sato has since improved on this record.

[edit] 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.

From 2006 Suzuki is running 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 his initial entry being rejected by the FIA after not securing financial guarantees in time for regular entry bid and was not formally confirmed until January 26, 2006. Suzuki was able to see his team make its debut at the Bahrain Grand Prix on 15 March 2006.

[edit] Complete F1 Results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position)

Yr	Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	Team	WDC	Points
1988	Lola	BRA	SMR	MON	MEX	CAN	USA	FRA	GBR	GER	HUN	BEL	ITA	POR	ESP	JPN 16	AUS		Lola	NA	0
1989	Zakspeed	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		Zakspeed	NA	0
1990	Lola	USA ret	BRA ret	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		Lola	12th	6
1991	Lola	USA 6	BRA ret	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		Lola	22nd	1
1992	Footwork	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		Footwork	NA	0
1993	Footwork	RSA ret	BRA ret	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		Footwork	NA	0
1994	Jordan	BRA	PAC ret	SMR	MON	ESP	CAN	FRA	GBR	GER	HUN	BEL	ITA	POR	EUR	JPN	AUS		Jordan	NA	0
1995	Ligier	BRA 8	ARG ret	SMR 11	ESP	MON	CAN	FRA	GBR	GER 6	HUN	BEL	ITA	POR	EUR	PAC ret	JPN DNS	AUS	Ligier	17th	1