Irvine hopes experience in Japan is an advantage

Brad Spurgeon

Sunday, Oct. 31, 1999 | 1:09 a.m.

While Japan's motor racing culture has helped to create several Formula One world champions, the favor has not yet been returned.

But at the season-ending Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka on Sunday, Eddie Irvine, current points leader, is counting on his experience of racing in Japan to give him an edge over the defending series champion, Mika Hakkinen.

Irvine raced in the local Formula 3000 series in Japan from 1991 to 1993, and he started his Formula One career at the Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka in 1993 driving a Jordan to a sensational sixth place.

"If I were to win the championship and I could choose where to win it, this is the place I would want to do it," Irvine said in Suzuka on Thursday. "I came out of amateur racing in Europe into what was a very professional series at the time, here in Japan, and this is the country where I became a proper racing driver."

Japan is not a bad place for Hakkinen either, however, as it was where last year he won both the race and his first drivers' title. He has always been popular with the Japanese fans and has usually done well on the track, finishing third in 1993 and 1996 and second in 1995.

But he does not have as much experience in Japan as Irvine and several other drivers in Formula One. With its large automobile industry, Japan has one of the world's strongest racing cultures, and in recent years it has become a training ground for European drivers.

"It can be a bit of a parking place if a driver's career has stalled out in Europe," said Harvey Postlethwaite shortly before his death this year while setting up a now-aborted Formula One team for Honda. "Japanese Formula 3000 is in some ways even closer to Formula One than European Formula 3000 because you've got more freedom, more tire work and whatnot."

Jacques Villeneuve and Heinz-Harald Frentzen went to Japan before entering Formula One to try to revive careers that had sagged in Europe. Johnny Herbert, who won the European Grand Prix at the Nurburgring in Germany, raced in Japanese Formula 3000 in 1991 after a false start in Formula One.

Ralf Schumacher went to Japan in 1996 and won the All Nippon Formula 3000 series, after finishing second and third in Formula 3 championships in Europe. He then graduated straight to Formula One with the Jordan team in 1997.

Frentzen raced in a Japanese prototype series in 1992 and in Formula 3000 in 1992 and 1993 before entering Formula One in 1994. Both Frentzen and Villeneuve this week said their two favorite circuits were Spa, in Belgium, and Suzuka.

"I can't decide which I really prefer," Frentzen said. "Suzuka is a very interesting and very rich circuit where you can find almost all level of driving difficulties: quick curves, combinations of turns and straights or long straight lines. For me it is exactly what you feel like being on when you are getting toward the end of the season."

Villeneuve raced in the Japanese Formula 3 series in 1992, winning three races and finishing second over all.

"It is a difficult and risky place," he said of the Suzuka track. "The circuit adopts the shape of the landscape and its high-speed corners are very spectacular."

But while Japan has contributed to the creation of European stars - Honda powered Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost to multiple world titles, the Mugen-Honda engine powers Frentzen's Jordan, and Bridgestone equips cars with tires - there is only one Japanese driver in Formula One.

Toranosuke Takagi was raised in the Japanese series from childhood. While he has frequently out-qualified Pedro de la Rosa, his Spanish teammate at Arrows, he has yet to make a mark. De la Rosa, by the way, also raced in Japan, in Formula 3, Formula 3000 and the GT championship, in 1995, 1996 and 1997.