Ok everybody, now I have to get things straight.
My father designed Suzuka at the request of Mr. Honda.
I believe it was in 1961 that he received a telegram stating simply:"Please come to Tokio, Soichiro Honda"
My father went there and had a number of staff to help him and was given the plans of a large site and there was a 3D model of the site as well.
As there were quite a number of hills and existing roads between the rice fields, he made a design that would give the least amount of earth to be moved, including (already) the cross-over which was and is very unusual for a circuit.
However, as my father's opinion always was that a racing circuit must have a combination of different corners and challenges, a cross-over was certainly possible.
After the first sketches were made, they went to inspect the site with Mr. Honda by helicopter.
Once over the site, my father's fisrt thought was, that almost any design in that area would be impossible because of the many rice field.
And here I must correct member fndc (I'm sorry) but Mr. Honda said, "tell me where you want the track, and we'll sort it out".
So my father went back to the Honda office, made some changes and two or three days later they had another visit to the site.
Where the new track was planned, all the rice field had been buldozered away!
The local farmers had been paid off by Honda and been given another site for their rice fields.
So that may be the reason there are two or three lay-outs on their web-site attached to my father.
He went back for the opening race, which I think was won by John Miles in a Lotus 23.
I came there in 1998, racing the Viper, and was given the Royal treatment by the Suzuka Director Mr. Yamada and Mr Kawashima who worked with my father on the plans. Everybody remembered my father which made me feel very proud!
Most F1 drivers still say it is one of the best circuits around, even though the chicane has been put in and one of the real fast corners (the one before the tunnel-underpass) has been modified.
I can tell from experience that it is a fantastic challenging circuit.
John Hugenholtz