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.
