Super Aguri Driver: Yuji Ide

By nGO
November 19 2006

Ide's racing developement unlike his partner Sato has been mostly limited to Japan for his entire career, but this rookie is very eager to show he can hack it in F1.

Yuji Ide competed in the japanese formula 3 championship until after 1998, the year which sato should have competed against him. Ide's career and road to f1 spans quite long, his results are varied. The first real success for Ide came in the form of his move to Formula dream, which was indeed a dream come true as he won the championship during 1999.

The year 2000 saw Ide return to Japanese formula 3 where his more mature race craft became evident as he had more success then his previous attempts and became the runner up. The years that followed, Ide found hard to replicate or build on his previous campaigns, appearing in Formula Nippon and finishing fifth in the championship during 2001 and seventh in 2003. What is interesting to note is the years between him competing in formula Nippon is his attempt at moving into europe where he competed in the french f3, but he had no impact and failed to impress.

Since returning to Formula Nippon, Ide showed a clear trend that he was a driver on the up, finishing seventh on his first year back, then fifth the following year, and in 2005 became a runner up pushing him into contention for an f1 drive with Super Aguri.

Obviously there is not a great deal if anything on Ide's f1 career except that he appreciates sato's style and his first proper test was in Barcalona completing forty or so laps. Ide has plenty to prove, and a rookie at the age of 31 he does not have much time. Thrusted into F1 with minimal acclimitising to F1 and the fact that he knows hardly a word of english, one can say he is already competing with one hand tied behind his back. You can be sure that Ide will be giving it his all under the most difficult of circumstances and if he can survive F1, then we should all watch this space.

Super Aguri Career: best finish 13th / best grid position: 18th        total: 0 points.