After the Honda Racing Gallery, I continued on the 2+ mile walk over to Spoon Curve.
All of the blooming Sakura around the track was really nice. Only starting in 2024 was the Suzuka GP moved to the April slot, previously being in October. A much more welcome sight compared to October’s generally rainy season.
To explain to those unfamiliar with Suzuka Circuit (aka 97% of people visiting this site), Spoon Curve is a massive turn that is on the opposite side of where I entered the track. I enter near the first corner in the bottom left, Spoon being in the upper right.
I had a General Admission ticket for the weekend, which means I can sit in any of the green circled areas. The areas circled in blue are where I had sat the previous day for FP1 & FP2.
As I got closer to Spoon, I entered the West Fanzone, where most of the food and stores for the West Area were.
They also had the FIA’s model car for the upcoming 2026 rule changes.
Passing that, I went past section M along Spoon toward N.
I felt like section N has the best view of the 3 seating sections for Spoon. You have a good view of the cars entering, performing, and exiting the turn.
(I’ll note the driver above was on a warmup lap, which is why he was going so slow.)
The first day (and the second day as well) were plagued with the grass randomly catching on fire. This was because the F1 cars bottom out at high speeds, sending titanium sparks all over, and the grass was very dry.
Free Practice 3 was no exception ending with yet another fire near 130R.
Between sessions they had marshals literally watering all of the grass on the track with every possible container you can think of: sprayers, watering cans, buckets, garbage bags, traffic cones, etc.
Or a vat of water on the back of a truck where you shovel water out with what appears to be a tray.
For Qualifying, I moved over to the GA area of section G, where I spent FP2 the previous day.
A6400 images below.
