Mounting Fuji pressure on F1

Japan’s Fuji Speedway has begun a major rebuild in line with plans drawn up by circuit design expert Herman Tilke. The proposed work will result in a 4.5-km course.

Now owned by Toyota, the original home of the Japanese Grand Prix was built in 1965, and its first Formula One race was James Hunt’s 1976 rainsoaked title-clincher.

A year later, Hunt scored his final Fl win there, a race overshadowed by the death of a marshal and a spectator when Gilles Villeneuve’s Ferrari hit the back of Ronnie Peterson’s Tyrrell and vaulted over the bathers.

F1 never returned to Fuji thereafter. When the Japanese GP was reinstated in 1987, it was at Suzuka. But is Toyota looking to muscle in on the action?