Round 15, Sunday, November 1st

Two drivers travelled to the Suzuka circuit in Japan in pursuit of the 1987 World Championship. Nelson Piquet had already been champion twice before (1981 and 1983) while his Canon WilIiams Honda team-mate Nigel Mansell was bidding to take the title for the first time. What happened in a quite extraordinary series of events has been captured on this exciting video. Piquet described the circuit as "very narrow, very bumpy, very quick and dangerous". How he and Mansell dealt with the problems is illustrated here. Although Japan is renowned for its thriving motor industry, there had been only two grands prix before Suzuka and both of these had been on the Fuji track near Tokyo in 1976 and 1977. So the Suzuka circuit (ironically owned by Honda) would form an almost new test for everyone. Piquet led the championship on 76 points, with Mansell on 61. Ayrton Senna was on 51 and had relinquished his interest in winning, but could still grab runner-up spot. Alain Prost was on 46 points and had also been forced to accept that he could not retain his title for a further year. So the stage was set for the penultimate race. The Ferraris of Gerhard Berger and Michele Alboreto were at the point where they were definitely fully competitive. The Benettons, too, were going well in the hands of Thiery Boutsen and Teo Fabi. But 52 laps of the 3.66 mile Suzuka track would take some handling and the cameras were in position to record the very best of the action - and one of the most dramatic events of the year!