Super Aguri Formula One Team

Super Aguri

A debut season when you've bought an established F1 team from someone else is never an easy thing, but when you've started the team from scratch, well, that's the equivalent of attempting to climb Mount Everest armed only with a coat - as the Super Aguri outfit discovered in 2006.

Not since the 2002 season has Formula One had a completely new team line-up on the grid. That year was also the last time more than 10 teams took part in the Sunday afternoon grands prix.

However, that all changed last season with the arrival of Super Aguri, named after boss Aguri Suzuki.

F1's 11th team, an all-Japanese outfit with a Japanese engine courtesy of Honda and two Japanese drivers in Takuma Sato and Yuji Ide, faced a tough challenge in their debut season as they had so little preparation time.

With their entry into the championship only confirmed in January, and their driver line-up in mid-February, Super Aguri had to use a four-year old modified Arrows chassis for their first three F1 grands prix.

From the very first event the Super Aguri's struggled to match the pace of the rest of the grid and were quickly made aware of how far behind they were. While Ide failed to finish the race, retiring due to a mechanical failure, Sato ended down in 18th place.

The situation didn't improve for the team and in fact they were forced to sack Ide after he took out Albers' Midland on the opening lap at Imola.

The Japanese driver was replaced by Franck Montagny, and even though the former Renault tester had more pace and experience than his predecessor, he wasn't able to do much due the inferior quality of Super Aguri's F1 car.

Montagny also didn't last very long as he was replaced by Japan's Sakon Yamamoto at the German GP. Yamamoto's arrival also coincided with the debut of the team's new car, the SA06.

Teething problems with the new car, though, stalled the team's progress yet again and it wasn't until the Italian GP that Super Aguri finally got a handle on things. The Imola event even saw Sato beat the Midland of Albers to the checkered flag as both SA06s made it to the finish-line.

F1's newest team, though, had to wait until the final race of the season to secure their best result and best performance with Sato finishing in 10th place while Yamamoto set the seventh fastest race lap time.

It was a fine effort and, although 2006 didn't yield any points for the team, in the end it wasn't quite as bad as some had thought it would be.