OCTOBER 1, 2001

Honda heading for the streets of Tokyo

THE Honda Motor Company wants to make as much as possible of its Formula 1 program and next Monday will be putting on a street display in Tokyo featuring Jacques Villeneuve and Takuma Sato running current F1 cars while former F1 drivers Satoru Nakajima and Aguri Suzuki will drive a 1967 Honda RA300 and a Reynard-Honda Formula Nippon car. The event will take place at the Fuji Television Tower in downtown Tokyo.

The F1 circus will gather three days later at the Honda-owned Suzuka circuit for the final round of the World Championship - although there is little left to settle after the United States GP which confirmed that David Coulthard will be runner up to Michael Schumacher in the Drivers' Championship and McLaren will be second in the Constructors'. The big interest will be whether Mika Hakkinen can bow out of the sport (theoretically for a year) with a second consecutive victory. The Finn has always been a big fan of the Suzuka circuit and to finish his F1 career (or at least the first part of it) with two wins will make the point that he is still hungry if given the correct equipment.