At 4.563km long, the revamped Fuji Speedway re-opened its doors in April 2005 and in 2007, took over the hosting of the Japanese Grand Prix in what was an alternating basis with the Suzuka Circuit.

The circuit, owned by Toyota, sits in the shadow of Mount Fuji and at 4.359km in length hosted the season finale in 1976. The race has been well documented elsewhere but while Mario Andretti won the rain hit event in his Lotus Ford while James Hunt's third position in his McLaren Ford gave him the World Championship from Niki Lauda - who withdrew from the race due to the conditions - by a single championship point.

The race returned in 1977 with Hunt taking his final Formula One victory in his McLaren but an accident involving Gilles Villeneuve and Ronnie Peterson resulted in the death of two spectators and the race was dropped from the calendar. The Japanese Grand Prix resumed at the Honda-owned Suzuka circuit in 1987 and hosted the Japanese Grand Prix until 2006. The circuit will host the 2009 event.

With Hermann Tilke involved in the new Fuji facility, the circuit closed to racing in 2003 before reopening two years later. In 2007, the race organisers hoped to pull in a crowd of 280,000 over the three day Grand Prix weekend. On a side note, Fuji also made history in becoming the first circuit to be featured in a video game, Pole Position, the 1982 classic video game by Namco.

Heavy rain and organisational difficulties made the 2007 Japanese Grand Prix a rather chaotic affair although Lewis Hamilton secured the race win from the pole position. The first 19 laps of the race were conducted behind the safety car with the Ferrari duo of Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa opting to run on intermediate tyres. The decision was a poor one that would shuffle them to the back of the pack.

Hamilton led the way from team-mate Alonso until the champion made a rare mistake and crashed heavily at turn five. Heikki Kovalainen finished in second position to record his and Renault's best result of the season while Raikkonen recovered to finish in third position.

While the two championship protagonists made a mess of the 2008 67-lap Japanese Grand Prix, Fernando Alonso steered clear of trouble to take his 21st career win from Robert Kubica and Kimi Raikkonen. While it was a tremendous drive from Alonso once again, the race will be remembered for the lap one antics of pole-sitter Lewis Hamilton and Felipe Massa...

Hamilton made a poor start from the pole position and vigorously chopped across team-mate Heikki Kovalainen on the long run to the first turn with Kimi Raikkonen on the outside. Hamilton missed his braking point as he looked to regain lost ground to Raikkonen and ran wide forcing Finn to the outside of the circuit. This allowed Kubica and Alonso through to take the lead.

Having dropped down the order Hamilton battled hard with Massa for fifth position, taking the position into turn ten. The Brazilian ran wide at the tight turn 11 and launched his F2008 across the chicane before making contact with the McLaren. Massa continued but Hamilton had been tipped into a spin and dropped to the rear of the field.

Massa would get a drive through penalty for the incident while Hamilton would also get a penalty for running wide and compromising Raikkonen. While Hamilton choked and Massa saw red, Kubica calmly picked up the pieces and led the opening laps of the race from Alonso, but it was the Renault driver that emerged from the first round of pit stops ahead and the Spaniard would then pull clear of the BMW Sauber driver to take the chequered flag by a comfortable five second margin.

The Japanese Grand Prix moves back to Suzuka for 2009.