Back in the days of Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna demand for tickets at Suzuka was such that you had first to apply for the right to buy one, and every year three million people would do that. Hard to believe in this era - there were lots of gaps in the grandstands last weekend - but that's the way it was.
If the pulling power of Formula 1 is no longer what it used to be, still there abides a passion for it in Japan, and Suzuka remains one of the great cathedrals of motor racing, the only sadness being that inevitably the challenge of it, as with Spa, has been lessened by the latest generation of cars. Anything that serves to equalise the drivers, to turn daunting corners into 'easy flat' is surely to be deprecated.
Still, until Ross Brawn is able to effect necessary changes for the next Formula 1, it is what it is: the cornering speeds of the current cars may be mind-blowing, but don't expect much in the way of order changes. Kevin Magnussen's inventive pass of Felipe Massa apart, Sunday's overtaking was essentially confined to DRS into Turn 1.
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