FORMULA 1 JAPANESE GRAND PRIX
Early April · Suzuka, Mie Prefecture · Three Days · Since 1976 · Motor
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Arranged by the Court
- Dates9 to 11 April 2027
- WhereSuzuka
- DressLounge suit
- AdmissionOpen to the public
- The weatherIn April Tsu, near Suzuka, reaches about 19°C by day and 10°C at night, and rain falls on about one day in three.
- The tableThe Court dines afterwards at Circuit Auberge, Suzuka Circuit Hotel, at the circuit (suzukacircuit.jp).
- Of noteReserved shuttle buses run straight to the circuit from Nagoya, Shin-Osaka, Kyoto and other stations, with every seat reserved.
- In companyA member who means to go says so to the Secretary, and the Court seats its members together where the engagement allows.RSVP tells the Secretary that a member means to attend. Send passes the engagement’s name, its date and the address of its page to whomever the reader chooses, or, on a computer, copies the address; the Court itself sends and keeps nothing.RSVP
The Japanese Grand Prix is run at Suzuka, on the circuit drivers name more often than any other when asked which one they would choose.
It was built as a test track for a car company, it has a big wheel beside the main straight, and it is the only figure-of-eight circuit in Formula One.
The Test Track
Soichiro Honda held a view his industry took some time to accept: without racing, cars will not improve. In the late fifties he decided his company needed a circuit of its own, and in 1961 he broke ground on one in Mie prefecture.
He hired a Dutchman. John Hugenholtz had worked on Zandvoort and would go on to Jarama and Zolder, and what he delivered at Suzuka was not what anybody expected.
The problem he set himself was balance. A circuit that turns mostly one way tires a driver unevenly and teaches a car nothing about the other direction, which is no use at all in a test track. His answer was to make the lap cross over itself, so the back section passes beneath the front by tunnel and then over it by bridge, and the corners come out at eight lefts to ten rights.
The circuit opened in September 1962, for motorcycles. The championship’s first Japanese Grand Prix was run at Fuji in 1976. Suzuka took it in 1987, twenty-five years after it opened, and has held it in most years since.
The Two Afternoons
Two world championships were settled here in consecutive years by the same two men hitting each other.
In 1989 Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna were teammates who had stopped speaking. Prost turned in at the chicane, Senna went for the gap, and they came together. Senna rejoined, won the race, was disqualified afterwards for how he had rejoined, and Prost took the title.
In 1990 they arrived again with the championship between them. Senna had asked for pole position to be moved to the clean side of the track and had been refused. At the first corner he drove into the back of Prost at something close to two hundred kilometres an hour and both cars left the circuit. The title was Senna’s before either man had climbed out.
Nothing in the sport has been settled quite so bluntly, and both of those were settled here.
What to Know
The Esses, from the third corner to the seventh, are why drivers love it. A car that gets the first one wrong is compromised through all five, and the sequence has to be taken as one thing rather than as corners.
130R is named for its radius in metres. It is taken flat now and was not always.
The circuit is narrow by modern standards and lined with gravel rather than tarmac, so a small mistake beaches a car where elsewhere it would cost a second. That is a large part of why it rewards precision.
It rains, and the undulations send streams across the surface. Wet races here are genuinely dangerous rather than merely slow.
The Japanese crowd is unlike any other: knowledgeable, quiet while cars are running, and given to handmade signs and elaborate costume for particular drivers.
The amusement park attached to the circuit was built by Honda when the place was called Honda Land, and the big wheel turns throughout the race. In 2027 the weekend carries a Sprint for the first time at Suzuka: Sprint Qualifying on the Friday, the Sprint on the Saturday ahead of qualifying, and the Grand Prix on the Sunday.
Questions
When is the 2027 Japanese Grand Prix?
The 2027 Formula 1 Japanese Grand Prix is held at Suzuka Circuit from Friday 9 to Sunday 11 April 2027, the fourth round of the season, with the Grand Prix on the Sunday.
Is the 2027 Japanese Grand Prix a Sprint weekend?
Yes. Suzuka says 2027 brings the first F1 Sprint in the Japanese Grand Prix’s history. Friday has the single practice session and Sprint Qualifying, Saturday the Sprint, of about 100 kilometres, and Grand Prix qualifying, and Sunday the Grand Prix.
How much are tickets for the Japanese Grand Prix?
As of October 2026, Suzuka lists 2027 adult prices from 22,000 yen for the West Area and 24,000 yen for G stand, to 75,600 yen for A1 on the main straight and 120,000 yen for V2 in the grandstand; the Paddock Club is 1,200,000 yen. Sales open each autumn through Suzuka’s MobilityStation.
How do you get to Suzuka Circuit for the Grand Prix?
Suzuka recommends the shuttle bus from Kintetsu Shiroko station, which needs no booking, or its reserved direct buses from stations including Nagoya, Shin-Osaka, Kyoto and Osaka. It warns that the wait at Ise Railway’s Suzuka Circuit Ino station is expected to exceed three hours, and advises other stations.
The Court
The Japanese Grand Prix is not the Court’s own. Paddock access, grandstand seats and rooms in Nagoya or the towns nearer the circuit are sought on a member’s behalf, and the Court arranges the whole of it: getting there, where to stay, and the table afterwards. Suzuka has few rooms of its own and most people stay an hour away.
How one becomes a member is set out under Admission.
- IV · The Fan Zone, © Suzuka Circuit
Set down September MMXXVI · Revised October MMXXVI
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