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When F1 forced an incredible last-minute rule change

Modern Formula 1's complexities mean you can't even change a spark plug quickly these days. So imagine how teams would manage if they suddenly had to remove all wings - like they had to almost 50 years ago...

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.

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