Suzuka, 1989. 🇯🇵🔥
Rare amateur footage - packed with action and key moments.
A different angle of Ayrton Senna being helped by marshals to rejoin the race, as Alain Prost walks away after the collision.
Any qualifying lap from the 80’s or 90’s can oneshot the idea that losing 6-7 seconds of overall lap time would harm the current sport. As long as the cars are shot well and the SENSATION of the speed is displayed most people would not care #tbh
Nakajima was "not" the first Japanese driver in F1, but he was the first to race full-time. He joined Lotus in 1987 - as a teammate to Senna, as part of a deal to run Honda engines - but his first steps in F1 dated long before that.
This footage here is from early 1983 and shows him on his first F1 test on a Lotus 91 Ford (an ´82 spec car) in Donington Park. This feature story was broadcast in a coverage of a 1983 Japanese F2 event.(Yes, I do see those races, even though I can´t understand much of what they say 😅)
Nakajima spent the next years working towards an F1 drive, which included contesting some rounds of the 1986 F3000 season (now F2) in Europe and testing the Honda-powered F1 cars in Suzuka.
I find it remarkable how Satoru debuted in F1 full time aged 34 - "old" for the day - but was able to hold his own and score points in all the seasons he raced, even when driving the lemon Lotus Judd of 89. (and paved the way for more Japanese racers to enter F1).