Suzuka Circuit

Suzuka Circuit is in Ino, in Suzuka City, Mie Prefecture, Japan. It is a permanent track, 5.807 km long, run clockwise and with 18 corners. Soichiro Honda decided in the late 1950s to build a permanent circuit in Mie Prefecture, and the Dutchman John Hugenholtz designed it in 1962 as a test track for Honda. The track has a figure-of-eight layout: the back straight, about 1.2 km long, crosses over the front section of the track on a bridge.

The original circuit was very fast, with only one slow corner. The Casio chicane was therefore added at the last corner before the pit straight in 1983. In 1987 the track was brought up to Formula One standards: the Degner curve was split into two corners, and more barriers and escape areas were added. In 2002 the chicane and the 130R were reworked, and the run-off area at the Dunlop Curve was doubled from 12 to 25 metres. The chicane was adjusted again in 2003. After the accident at the 2014 Japanese Grand Prix, the Dunlop corner was modified slightly. Ahead of the 2025 race, the surface was relaid from Turn 1 to the entry of Turn 8. At the Grands Prix from 1987 to 2001 the lap measured 5.86 km, and since 2003 it has been 5.807 km.

The first Formula One World Championship race at Suzuka took place in 1987 and was won by Gerhard Berger in a Ferrari. Suzuka hosted the Japanese Grand Prix every year until 2006. In 2007 and 2008 Formula One raced at Fuji Speedway instead. Suzuka was rebuilt and returned to the calendar in 2009. There was no race there in 2020 or 2021. Because the Japanese Grand Prix was long one of the final rounds of the season, many championships were settled at Suzuka. The 2026 Japanese Grand Prix was also held at Suzuka.