Super Aguri, Minnows No More
Aguri Suzuki’s small team makes inroads into the world of F1
The world did not expect much from them for 2007 except of course to take up their rightful place at the back of every grid again.
They proved everyone very wrong. Not only have they finished in 12 of their 14 starts so far this season, but have also scored 4 points already. An 8th place at the Spanish GP and a wonderful 6th place at the Canadian GP where Takuma Sato raced Fernando Alonso for 6th position and in a wonderful overtaking manouvere on the long straight down to the last corner forced his way thru and took that position from the double World Champion.
The Super Aguri team was seemingly only created by Honda after intense pressure from the Japanese public to keep Takuma Sato in F1, but former F1 driver Aguri Suzuki has long had ambitions of running his own team. With the launch of his Super Aguri F1 Team as the eleventh participant in the 2006 Formula One World Championship that dream has become a reality.
After only notifying the FIA of its intention to race in the 2006 season in November of 2005, it did not seem as if they left themselves enough time to complete the transition from dream to reality. They did however purchased a few Arrows cars, which raced in the 2002 season, and barely made it onto the F1 grid for the first race of 2006. Failure was not only an option, it was a definite probability.
The fastest Super Aguri was six seconds off the pace of pole sitter Michael Schumacher. The teams insistence on running two Japanese drivers backfired and Franck Montagny replaced Yuji Ide in the Euopean GP. They did however update the older chassis and brought the SA06 to the forefront and managed to immediately improve their qualifying times at the German GP where their fourth driver of the year, Sakon Yamamoto, made his debut.
During the last race of the year, the team actually achieve a 7th and a 9th fastest lap in the race and their highest finish was a 10th place, but still they ended the season without a single point for the team.
Of course the Super Aguri team, who barely made it onto the F1 grid at the season opening race in Australia in 2006 is not the same team we have in 2007. This year it has been reported that they have the actual 2006 Honda chassis to race with and on top of that they have the Honda RA807E engine, the same engine that the factory team has.
The team also announced a new title sponsor as well as the fact that Anthony Davidson would join Sato for the 2007 season. And even tough they suffered a late setback by failing the FIA crash test, the team did unveil their car less than two days before the beginning of the season and surprised everone by qualifying in the 10th and 11th positions on the grid, ahead of the factory cars! Suddenly they found themselves right in the middle of the very competitive midfield order.
Aguri Suzuki said “I believe that this year we will be able to compete at a higher level and our aim will be to achieve Championship points from the start of the season. I know that it is going to be very difficult to be amongst the top teams at this stage, but we will try our best to be competing in the middle of the grid.”
The Super Aguri team has surprise everyone in the F1 faternity, except maybe themselves, they aim high and they expect results. Their team logo symbolises their policy and aim for positivity. The motives of the logo elements are a circuit's racing line, an "S" shape, fire to overpower all and a Ninja's "Shuriken". They combine all of these elements to symbolise speed and power.
And just as the Minardi team was everyone's favorite little team, it seems as if the Super Aguri team is trying their best to not only fill that roll, but to even step out of it, to better and better results.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
