11 replies to this topic

[Jape]

Why is it so hard to get deeper information about Japan F3000?

I've been searching from internet about photos, videos, (english writen)books, stories, really anything about Japan F3000 on years '89 - '94. Those days when becoming/former F1 drivers like; Alesi, Apicella, Barbazza, Barilla, Bertaggia, Danner, Donnelly, Frentzen, Herbert, Irvine, Lammers, Pirro, Ratzenberger, Salo, Schumacher, Weidler and many other European drivers were racing there. All I can find is just race/season results and some videoclips from you tube..

It is like this book I bought, Christopher Hilton's Johnny Herbert - The steel behind the smile. I bought it because I thought it would be nice to read things about Johnny's career that I'm not yet heard so much about, meaning like years in Japan F3000 '90 and '91. Well, big surprise - no pictures, no stories, the book really jumps over the whole two year stage of Herbert being racing in Japan F3000..

So if someone have any hints about where to find deeper information about Japan F3000 "history" I'd be pleased.

Further more I made this topic, cause there didn't exist topic in TNF about Japan F3000 before and I hope this topic would gather some stories/discussion around the issue.

[fines]

Why? Well, talk about a language BARRIER!;)

Bits and pieces can be found in European magazines of the times, but they went hardly beyond skindeep. A few years ago, I discovered that the JAF website had complete results for all these races (and many more!) but, of course, in Japanese! I set out to learn the language and managed the basics, but it's hardly enough to get a good understanding. And that's just the statistics!

I would venture to guess that there are some good Japanese websites around, but unless you're close to fluent in the language, how are you even going to be able to say if a site is any good at all? There must've been some European journos who went there, perhaps our Simon Arron can give a lead?

[Simon Arron]

Hi Michael

I'm not sure I can help, sadly. Not many European journalists covered the JF3000 series - Adam Cooper was based in Tokyo for a season or three during the early 1990s, but I have a feeling he was the only one.

There is some JF3000 data on Forix, but it only covers championship positions. There is an English section on the Formula Nippon website (http://www.f-nippon....tsfn/index.html), with a 1996-2008 results archive, but it doesn't extend to the previous era.

I will contact a colleague in Japan, to see whether he is aware of any on-line resources in English.

Cheers,
Simon

[Gerald Swan]

There are full results, 1973 to date (in English) here: http://fndc.hp.infos...o.jp/fndce.html

It also covers Japanese F3.

Gerald.

Lola Heritage

[ghinzani]

I always wonder about some of the pioneering Gaijan (is that correct) drivers like Richard Geck, Elgh, Lees, Rosberg etc and how they got their drives out there. I can remember Toms were always offering an F3 drive from the early 90s for the best of the European F3 drivers, with an accompanying large bag of gelt.

[fines]

Yes, Adam Cooper was the only one I could remember, too.

[Formula Once]

Macau has always been a drivers market for Japanese teams and manufacturers. Jan Lammers raced there for four years from 1985 onwards and ended up getting the Dome/Dunlop/Yamaha F3000 drive in 1987 which he combined with his contract with Jaguar. Also: a lot of cars where imported from Europe (March etc.) so there were always links to European drivers one way or the other. Some manufacturers racing in the national and world sportscar championship placed their non-Japanese drivers in F3 or F3000/Nippon too, just to give them something to do when in Japan. In those days the fees paid to non-Japanese drivers were quite impressive, as was the prize money. It was a very interesting scene in the late eighties and early ninetees. A lot of cars, a lot of good drivers. And remember that a FNippon on qualifyers would have outqualified many F1 cars at Suzuka back then.

[Geza Sury]

Originally posted by Gerald Swan
There are full results, 1973 to date (in English) here: http://fndc.hp.infos...o.jp/fndce.html

It also covers Japanese F3.

Gerald.

What a great website! Thanks a lot!

BTW, there are some information and photos about Formula Nippon in the F3000 yearbooks, which were published in the late 80s and the early 90s.

[Elford68]

I have some races in video

[HistoryFan]

I have some questions about this series:

Why was the Japanese F3000 so popular in the early 90s? I heard that Irvine becomes millionaire in Japan (3,5 mio Dollars in two years) Why was it possible to earn that much money in Japan but not in Europe?
And why isn't the current Nippon series called Super Formula not that popular as in the 90s? Why did the series make the way down?

The cars in the 90s were very fast because they have very soft tyres.

Edited by HistoryFan, 10 August 2013 - 20:49.

[Jape]

Update to the topic starting post I made over 10 years ago. Finding information related to Japanese F3000 on years '89 - '94 is nowadays a bit easier. Full season and race results can be found even from wikipedia both english and japanese, e.g.

 

https://en.wikipedia...00_Championship

 

or

 

https://ja.wikipedia...91年の全日本F3000選手権

 

Quite many race videos are available in Youtube with image quality on those days, e.g. one of channels among others is ARV factory

 

https://www.youtube....h?v=mCYNjnWNtgQ

 

https://www.youtube....h?v=E0z64CA-qE4

 

What comes to book with english langage and early comments in this topic related to language barrier, yes I have lost hope already. However it would be great to know if there is either digital or physical versions of books available in Japanese, please link if you know.

 

What comes to images, I would have quite high hopes, like with youtube more content could have become available during the last 10 years, but unfortunately haven't still been able to find any image databases from that era. Probably because I can't google the topic with Japanese. So, if you know any Japanese F3000 image sources around from late 80's to 94, please post to here.

 

And of course I hope this topic would collect some nice discussions and stories from this amazing series, beautiful cars and great era of Japanese F3000 racing with sometimes close up to 40 drivers attempting to get through the qualifying.

[Team Result]

Greetings Jape,

I found this website that has some pix.            https://motorsport-p...ns-top-formula/