Grapevine: Paddock Life - Suzuka edition

The Japanese Grand Prix has always been one of the more popular on the calendar - even though sometimes you do wonder why.

The hotel rooms are much smaller and less luxurious than Shanghai, the journey into the track takes just as long as in China, and there is no compensation for the frustration caused by most European mobile phones not working or Japanese ATM machines not accepting any non-Japanese bank cards.

Maybe it is the huge passion that the locals have for Formula One that swings it. With a three-day attendance figure of more than 350,000, and the long queue of people trying to get in each day stretching for miles, it is hard to believe that Honda or Toyota were not involved in the championship fight.

And as a setting, Suzuka just cannot be beaten. The walk from the Circuit Hotel bus stop, past the Log Cabin karaoke bar, through the amusement park to the paddock gate each morning cannot help but remind you all of Suzuka's history.

Knowing too that this year could well be the last time that F1 visits the track delivered a special poignancy to the event - even if for some Suzuka's loss will cause no lost night's sleep.

Chief among those was McLaren boss Ron Dennis, who was outspoken about the facilities at Suzuka - especially when it came to his sleeping arrangements.

"For me this is not a circuit that has in any shape or form improved its facilities over the times that we have been here," said Dennis, who has celebrated some great victories and championships at the venue.

"The hotel rooms all smell, it is a common thing. It is as though nobody has been in the hotel for months. I know you are smiling about it, but in life if you want to hold on to something, then you have to work on it."

There are other traditions at Suzuka that the F1 paddock will miss, too, and none more so than the Thursday night 'Honda Rollercoaster Party' held in the amusement park.

Despite the huge downpour caused by a nearby typhoon leading to a slightly smaller attendance figure than normal, the diehards once again taught the Japanese about how much alcohol, and how quickly, an F1 paddock party can get through.

From the initial small half glasses of wine that the Japanese waitresses were pouring far slower than many were drinking, it did not take long before F1 regulars let the frustration overcome them and decided that taking whole bottles would be a much better bet.

Life got easier when Honda Racing chiefs Yasuhiro Wada and Nick Fry cracked open the keg of sake which, when the red wine ran out, was then pretty swiftly drained.

With Honda's Otmar Szafnauer calling time on everyone's enjoyment with his honest, but true - "You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here" - so too began another Suzuka tradition.

With the F1 personnel shuttles from the circuit hotel back to various towns often taking more than an hour to reach their destination, there is every reason for people to keep the partying going for as long as possible.

So the final 20 minutes of Honda's event was spent by everyone cramming cans of beer into their computer bags, rucksacks, coat pockets and plastic carriers for the journey home. And soon those F1 shuttles turned into the nightly 'Karaoke Express'...

The weekend will be remembered as one of intense lows and glorious highs for the Renault team.

It all started under dark clouds on Thursday when Giancarlo Fisichella was delivered the sad news that his childhood best friend Tonino had died following a short illness. It was the second friend Fisichella had lost this year and the emotion of the moment was clear - as Fisichella put his friend's name on his helmet as a mark of respect.

Later that day, too, Fernando Alonso whipped the media into a frenzy when he revealed that he had felt 'alone' at certain races this year due to the need to fight Fisichella for position. He compared it to the leader of the Tour de France suffering a puncture and then being left behind by his teammates.

Things didn't seem to improve over the first days of action, with Michelin's single lap pace not being a match for Bridgestone's, and then Felipe Massa seemingly playing the blocking game in qualifying on Saturday.

But it all turned in the race when many in the paddock felt that a certain natural justice had been served when Alonso - who had come through the mass damper affair, the penalties at Hungary and Monza, and his Italian GP engine blow-up - put one hand on the world championship trophy.

Renault's director of engineering Pat Symonds has seen it all before and will be celebrating nothing until both titles are decided, but his comment on Sunday night told everything you needed to know about how his team feel about what has happened this year.

A journalist asked him: "If you compare your situation now with a football match, would you say you are going into extra time in the lead?"

Symonds was swift in his response: "I would say the referee was blind!"