Suzuka Spiders and Russian MiG's

Konnichiwa means hello in Japan. These rather scary looking inhabitants of the Suzuka race circuit were waiting for us inside one of the tyre wall barriers at the Spoon corner. The impending typhoon and Jules Bianchi's crash made this a rather sombre week. Otherwise it was good to be in a new country and meet some of the locals who are all very enthusiastic race fans. Kampai (Cheers) and Arigato (Thank you) were about the only words of Japanese that I managed to pick up, very useful in the local bars..!


From the little town of Adler just south of Sochi, this view looking out across the Black Sea was waiting to greet us one evening after we had finished at the track.

The race circuit is built within the complex of buildings that housed many of the winter Olympic events and even attracted the Russian President Vladimir Putin who turned up to watch the end of the race on the Sunday. This caused mass hysteria with security, snipers and a fly past featuring several MiG fighters. We even had cameras inside the MiG's with 3 live feeds as they flew over the circuit.