Here I submit my experience and stories that I heard about 2007 Formula 1 Japanese Grand Prix at Fuji.
In Formula 1, my favourite drivers are Lewis Hamilton and Robert Kubica. I met both of them in their Formula 3 days. And I also met Nico Rosberg, Heikki Kovalainen, Sebastien Vettel, Vitantonio Liuzzi, Adrian Sutil and Sakon Yamamoto in their Formula 3 days, and I met Alex Wurz in his first Formula 1 test in A1-Ring. This is the year that might be "must-go" for me.
But I did not buy a F1 ticket. You must wonder why. The reason is simple. I don't believe in Fuji Speedway (Fuji) and Toyota.
Yes, I do NOT believe in Fuji Speedway at all. I can't forget the renewal event at April 2005. Many of the fans who waited for the Fuji opening could not arrive by the ceremony started, or even its ending. Actually, I was one of them. My main issue was the afternoon's Super GT test but many would want to see Formula 1 car driving in the opening event.
And the following event, Super GT Fuji 500km in May, too. It was simply terrible. Many people had to wait for three hours in a car park to leave the circuit. The circuit personnel were (and still) very arrogant, too. Their treat for disabled is awful as far as I remember.
Not only that expected traffic jam, another reason why I did not want to buy Fuji F1 ticket was "ticket-and-ride" system.
Every common people who wishes to visit Fuji F1 race had to leave their car at Fuji official car park or take a train, and transfer to the bus which is only allowed way to access to the circuit for the race. We hated the rule so I did not buy a ticket for the race but work. One of my agent introduced me a part-time shop clerk work. I did not want to pay for Fuji F1 but earn, you know...
My work was pretty nice. I sold McLaren team clothes under a ceil. It means, I did not get wet like the spectators. That was nice point! And I could hear the sound of the cars and could feel the atmosphere. Not too bad.
On Saturday evening after a work - me and my friend finished our work around 6 pm - walked down the road to West gate of Fuji Speedway to pick us a taxi for our hotel near Lake Yamanakako. It was raining, and very cold too. We were surprised for the queue of people who are waiting for the bus and taxi.
We waited for a hour but we hardly saw a taxi. Just a queue of the buses. I saw many buses and hardly moved.
We waited for two hours. But nothing had changed. Our queue was not shortened more than 10 metres.
We talked to a man who stood in front of us wanted to go to Lake Yamanakako car park. We decided to go together when we catch a taxi.
But my friend could not stand for any more in cold and rainy weather. I could completely understand. So she called our boss there and asked him to pick us up. He took some other staff who also waited for a taxi to Gotemba Station because they were afraid that they cannot take a final train to go home, but he thought we had already take a taxi to the hotel. Excuse me, but what a naive man! We left there almost same time so if she was stuck, we should be the same.
Anyway, he was back to the circuit. We had already waited for a taxi more than three hours.
We are really sorry for the man who might take a taxi with us. If we could wait a taxi together, we could charge all the transportation fee to our agent, so we could help them too. Except that reason, I wonder if they can go back to the car park without getting cold or high temparature. I am not sure that the man could come to the race on Sunday.
We could continue working on the race day fortunately, but we had to ask to leave the circuit earlier than the original contract. According to our contract, we had to work for 7:00-19:00. We are okay to work for 12 hours but we had to go back to Tokyo on that day. We have another proper day job in Tokyo from Mondays to Fridays. We cannot leave it.
Fortunately, we were released at 1 pm, just before the race start. But it rained heavily at that time. The race was started under safety car run. I was a bit surprised that the way of starting. But many people might think that Fuji and Toyota wanted to start the race because they want no refunds for the fan! But the more surprised thing was a qualifying. It was foggy but they did it, too.
Many domestic racing fans (except F1-only fan) know Fuji is sometimes foggy and rainy in autumn. I don't think Fuji and Toyota didn't know it. But they chose to have Formula 1 in autumn. End of September in 2007, and mid of October in 2008. The later, the worse.
We left the circuit about 2 pm. We waited for taxi for 20 or 30 minutes. After us, the queue was getting longer and longer. I think the race leader was Bernd Maylander at that time - So I think many people left the circuit without watching race.
We come to Fuji for work with no race ticket. So we do not watch the race. It's natural. But, many people come to Fuji to watch race. Not the flood of people waiting for the bus.
Race on TV seemed to be an exciting one. I completely agree. So it might be commercially successful one. But, F1 fans are not only armchair enthusiasts. They want to feel the atmosphere of the F1 race in their skin. I wonder how many people went to Fuji enjoyed the race. I wonder how many person can say "I was completely happy about the Fuji race organisation. It was very pleasant one. I want to come to Fuji next year too. Compare to Fuji, Suzuka is shit."
One of my friend who visited Fuji as a spectator only visited Saturday. This year Fuji did not allowed to sell separate ticket. Even you come to Fuji only for Friday or Friday to Sunday, you had to pay the same.
When she wanted to leave the circuit, she had to walk the circuit aroung to get a proper and correct information. No one knows the correct info. And she had to wait for 4 or 5 hours to take a bus because the queue IN FRONT OF HER got longer. Isn't that strange?
The circuit only announced "The bus transportation had delayed because of the rain". BECAUSE OF THE RAIN? It must be the lack of simulation of traffic. No one can get any good explanation even who worked there at that time.
Another of my friend went to work in Fuji Speedway that weekend. She worked there at bus stop information centre. And her experience seemed to be totally disaster.
She was at information centre at bus stop, but no information there, actually. Out of order. Caotic.
One of her colleague was punched her face by a man. I understand the spectators' angry because I was caused the problem too, but violence must not accepted. Who made them angry? The staff at information? I guess no. They are also victims.
Fuji and Toyota (shareholder of Fuji Speedway) were too optimistic. They did not take hands from Suzuka and local towns and cities. They were too arrogant. Toyota is famous for "kaizen" - improving. But no one can expect drastic change.
And many of the spectators and workers there were traumatic about Fuji. All of us - me, my friend who worked with me, my friend who waited a bus for more than 4 hours and another friend who worked in a information centre at bus stop - have visited Fuji for countless time since the old one. So we prepared better than the F1-only visitors. But we, even experienced fans think it was a nightmare. We will probably go, but we are hesitating to think about going to final round of Super GT in Fuji at the top of November. So do the others.
We cannot forget the experience. Not only the queue for the bus, but also for a toilet. I do not write a detailed story as some website reported, but you know that women and children cannot stay longer than men when you need to go to toilet. Everybody would like to keep their dignity for sure!
And another stupid thing Fuji Speedway and Toyota did us is a ban of the flags. Bringing banner and flags to cheer your favourite is very important to the spectators to show their passion and support. But Fuji Speedway banned it and allowed it only for Toyota Supporters' sheet. Only Toyota. Is it credible? But true.
Oh I remember another story. I did not notice that but only Toyota started their engine while singer Ryuichi Kawamura sang Japanese national anthem. I didn't notice that even I heard Kawamura's song. The reason is simple: I was queueing to the toilet and I did not have great reserve of mind to think of it!
To think about such a big event like Formula 1, the Fuji F1 special website should not be closed just some hours after the race. 85 spectators were forced to miss the race start because of the traffic jam. Hundreds of people who bought expensive ticket cannot see the cars driving when you sit down the seat. Circa 140,000 people came to one venue and many of them had to wait a bus for hours in rain. Why any newspaper, website, TV station and magazines don't report it properly? We suppose that those media people are afraid of Toyota. If they make Toyota bad and Toyota did not give commercial fee to them, the media company would have economic crisis.
How many times we saw Toyota's commercial film per a day? Car manufacturers pay a lot for TV. Even reading women's fashion magazine, we can find car commercial page (or article) easily.
We appreciate Japanese "Weekly Playboy" magazine that reported the disaster (but they only wrote it was Fuji Speedway's fault and did not mention Toyota).
I heard many more stories and I want to record all of them, but it is impossible. 140,000 people has 140,000 kinds of memories. If you include workers there, the numbers get only greater.
Please remember that this is only abstract of 4 girls' stories at Fuji Speedway when Bernd Maylander leads 19 laps.
