It was, all things considered, one of the most hapless Formula One careers in living memory. But as disastrous as Japanese driver Yuji Ide's brief and bungling time on the F1 grid was, his failure wasn't all his own fault.
At the end of Monty Python's Life of Brian, we're told that no matter what the situation you find yourself in, you can always look on the bright side of life. And usually, that optimistic statement might well be the case. There is almost always a positive side to any misfortune that is thrown your way, even for cases of mistaken crucifixion.
And Yuji Ide, a man destined to spend the rest of his life being known for one of the most inept and comical stints in Formula One this side of Mastercard Lola, can at least spend the rest of his life knowing that despite the dismal reputation he emerged from his four race stint in F1 with, he has still driven a genuine Formula One car in a genuine Formula One race. And so, despite everything else, he still sort of wins.
And further than that, there are plenty of extenuating circumstances in Ide's brief time on the grid with the Super Aguri squad that can explain away at least some of his shortcomings, and perhaps suggest that he wasn't quite as bad as he appeared to be. Still quite bad, let's be honest, but the sort of bad that can almost be adequately explained and excused. Think of how Jarno Trulli's season-long power steering whine got him another season in F1, that sort of thing.
In reality, no matter how talented or well prepared Ide might have been, Super Aguri's woeful debut season in the sport was never going to be the ideal environment for any Formula One rookie to thrive within. So the fact that the rookie in question was a 31-year-old journeyman from the curious hermetically sealed world of Formula Nippon, which often appears to more a career-fulfilling job in its own right than the feeder series it possibly should be, and the partnership was already a recipe for embarrassing failure.
Ide's signing was one apparently more born out of nationalistic necessity than anything else. Aguri Suzuki's new team was keen to build up their Japanese heritage, and already had Honda refugee Takuma Sato in one seat. But Ide wasn't picked simply because he was Japanese and available, and he came into F1 off the back of winning two FNippon races in 2005 on his way to second place in the championship, one spot better than the year before. He clearly had some talent somewhere.
His problems began during the build-up to the 2006 season. With Super Aguri racing against time to cobble together their first F1 machine, which would turn out to be an unholy alliance between a modified 2002 Arrows A23 chassis and a Honda V8, testing opportunities were limited. In fact, aside from a brief shakedown at Silverstone, Ide headed to the season-opener in Bahrain with a mere 44 laps in the car under his belt during a pre-season test at the Circuit de Catalunya, given the unashamed favouring of the more experienced (and Honda-aligned) Sato by the Honda-backed team.
He also wasn't helped by clear language issues. Not being a cosmopolitan and well-travelled driver, and having spent virtually his entire career at home, he struggled to converse with his engineers when it came to explaining anything more complicated than a spot of oversteer. "English may be hard for him," Aguri Suzuki said before the start of the season, "But he will get used to it so I am not worried about that."
Upon arrival in Bahrain, the Super Aguri team proved from the off to be not so super. The team was slow, and Ide was slowest of them all. In the Saturday practice session at the Sakhir circuit, his best lap was over ten seconds slower than session-topper Jenson Button, and almost five seconds slower than his team mate Sato. By qualifying, Ide rallied and closed those gaps, but he still ended Q1 nearly eight seconds slower than the fastest time, and the gap to Sato remained a humbling 2.86 seconds.
Still, thanks to some spectacular misfortune for Kimi Raikkonen, he was kept off the back of the grid, and lined up for his first-ever F1 race in 21st place. "My first F1 qualifying time is not fast and even though I am not in the last position, I am the practically the last!" he chortled afterwards, despite the fact that he was already getting some unhappy looks from his fellow drivers for his lack of pace.
In the race, it took just 11 laps for the leaders to lap him, and retired on lap 35, having suffered engine issues throughout the race, and having cocked up his first-ever pit stop when he failed to find neutral. Though he did at least manage a fastest race lap that was nearly two seconds faster than his qualifying time, which was some sort of progress. "I don't know what I could do to make the car better," he lamented afterwards, "But I know the mechanics have been working hard so I feel bad for my lack of experience." Bless.
His limited experience of F1 didn't get much better at the next race in Malaysia. With Raikkonen's suspension holding up in Q1 this time, he qualified a resolute last on the grid, and was once again forced to retire midway through the race, this time with throttle issues. Mercifully, he would finally make it to the end of a GP at the next race in Melbourne, but that race weekend would not be without some hapless controversy.
His 13th place finish at Albert Park (which translated as, unsurprisingly, last place, three laps in arrears), was overshadowed by an earlier incident in qualifying. The hapless Ide provided a moment of salacious blocking on Honda's Rubens Barrichello which left the Brazilian out of the session at the first hurdle ambling around for an Ide-shaped excuse or two, and the first serious mutterings of the Super Aguri man being completely out of his depth in the sport.
Still, there was some good news for the under-pressure Ide. Before the next race at Imola there was a bona-fide test session at Barcelona, back before F1 banned any sort of driver self-improvement exercises during a season. The team then responded to this obvious opportunity to try and help their linguistically-challenged and under-prepared driver to get up to speed by offering him a grand total of zero laps in the car throughout the test, Ide forced to defer to Sato once again. "I am disappointed that I was not able to drive during the test as I really need to complete more miles and spend more time learning the car," he pointed out, entirely accurately. But he wasn't given a chance.
And so, to Imola, and what would prove to be the denouement of Yuji Ide's F1 career, as well as any semblance of a friendship he might have built up with Midland F1 driver Christijan Albers. Having qualified his traditional 22nd, having got the gap to team mate Sato down to a mere 1.6 seconds by now despite the utter lack of testing chances, Ide (possibly tiring of being last all the time) attempted a passing move on Albers so optimistic that it may well have formed the template of Lewis Hamilton's approach to the entire 2011 season.
His Leeroy Jenkins line into the Villeneuve chicane on the opening lap pitched Albers towards the gravel and into a series of barrel rolls. While Albers was out, Ide soldiered on for a few more laps before retiring with a damaged car, possibly just to avoid the Dutchman lamping him one had he retired on the spot. "You can expect this from them," Albers fumed after extricating himself from his car, "The problem is the Aguris are missing some speed and we're missing some speed too but they're trying to make up for it too much in the first corner and this is what happens."
The team's reaction, possibly born out of guilt that they hadn't allowed him a single sodding minute of testing since the season had begun, was to leap to his defence. "His future is not decided yet," Suzuki explained ahead of the next race at the Nurburgring, "I want to continue to use him, but after this race we will have some meetings and then we will decide. Personally I want to continue to use Yuji, but it is not only my decision." Ide himself was still hoping for better things, optimistically saying that: "I have been studying the Nürburgring circuit very closely by watching videos of the past races and learning the race lines." As if that might help.
In the end though, the decision was not Ide's or Suzuki's to make. Fed up with Ide's humbling lack of pace, and now with the evidence of his Imola smash to paint him as a danger to others to boot, the FIA revoked Ide's superlicense, effectively barring him from F1's hallowed grid for good. Ide was replaced in the team with Frenchman Franck Montagny, who achieved just about as little as the Japanese driver had managed given the equipment limitations, but less spectacularly badly.
"I will continue to look after Yuji's interests and support his continuing efforts within the team, including his path back to a Formula One race seat," Suzuki said after admitting that the move to replace him with Montagny had been down to "advice offered by the FIA". But Ide would never again get close to an F1 seat. "I apologize to all my fans who have been worried for me and I hope that you continue to support me in the future," he muttered in July 2006, after securing a humbling return to the Formula Nippon grid, with Suzuki's own team in that championship.
Thus ends the Yuji Ide story, a man who became a cause célèbre for the benefits of an FIA superlicense, and who produced far more punchlines than he did points during his brief stay in F1. Still, while it would be implausible to suggest that he was completely misrepresented during his time on the grid, there was certainly more to his obvious issues than simply his own personal shortcomings.
Offered little testing time, showed no real patience from the FIA and ridiculed from the very public stage of the back of the grid, Ide never really had a chance. "He didn't know the circuits. He'd done just 200 kilometres in an F1 car before Bahrain - that was really tough," Suzuki lamented after the Ide experience left the sport, "In practice on Friday and Saturday, I had to ask Yuji 'what do you need now' and because he's so inexperienced in F1 even I found his answers, given in Japanese, hard to understand."
Still, for all of his problems, Ide has still raced in four grands prix. Which is four more than any of us have (unless any actual F1 drivers happen to be reading this). So, when looking back on everything, Ide will always have that. And as bright sides of life go, it's not too shabby a one.
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