It then withdrew after the 2008 season. Had it stayed one more season, it might have found itself world champion: The team that it left behind, Brawn, dominated and won both titles in 2009. Honda has been involved in a total of 72 victories in Formula One.

The first Japanese Grand Prix races took place in 1976 and 1977 at the Fuji Circuit. At the first race, it rained so hard that Niki Lauda withdrew from the race, having returned from a near-fatal accident earlier in the season. His withdrawal gave James Hunt the opportunity to finish the race in third and take the points he needed to win the title. The following year, Gilles Villeneuve went off the track and killed two spectators, who were in a forbidden area.

The race did not run in Japan again until 1987, but it has run every year since. Since then, it has been held at Suzuka every year except in 2007 and 2008, when it was at Fuji.

Usually coming near the end of the season, the Japanese Grand Prix has frequently decided the world title. The most memorable of such occasions were in 1989 and 1990, when the title was decided between Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna, in both years in the same way.

In 1989, both drivers were with the McLaren team and they collided at the first corner. Prost dropped out of the race, but Senna drove through an escape road and rejoined the track and went on to win the race and take the points he needed for the title. But he was later judged to have made an illegal move in using that escape road, cutting the chicane, and he was disqualified from the race, which meant the title went to Prost.