For Super Aguri F1 team, Melbourne 2007 was the beginning of the maturity of the team. Anthony Davidson joining Taku as his team mate, the Arrows A23s finally pensioned off and replaced by Honda RA106s, and in Melbourne, Yusze and I were joined by our friend Mark Talbot from the UK, also known as the webmaster of   www.saf1.org.  For the most part, the weekend was a good time for us all.  We joined Emma and Ant at Melbourne zoo on Wednesday morning while they played with koalas, emus and kangaroos… And believe it or not Em introduced me to Ant and his wife Carrie as “our (SAF1’s) biggest fan in Australia”… that’s something special indeed… it’s official…  

Even more comical is the moment when Miss Emma Bearpark faced her fan club banner for the first time on Saturday morning. When we saw her walking towards the paddock when we’re in autograph alley we just yelled out “EMMA EMMA!!!” to get her attention and flipped out our “EMMA BEARPARK FAN CLUB” banner!!! We absolutely adored her facial expression as soon as she saw it!! She went WIIIIIIIIDE eyed and dropped almost to her knees and started bolting towards the media centre with her hand over her face and hid behind Matsumoto-san (Taku’s personal photographer) we were all ROARING with laughter as she did all of the above!!! Eventually she came out of hiding straight to us and gave me a bearhug and I gave her a kiss and greeted her. “

I know she’ll still blush if I mention something about the EB fanclub… somehow I can’t think of anybody before that created a fan club for an F1 team press officer… and it is definitely unlikely it’ll happen again.  Something which started as a joke between Emma and I in Melbourne 2006 has definitely got everybody’s attention and even Taku mentioned it over dinner on Saturday night to Emma…

Something much more dramatic that happened a few hours later on that special Saturday on track; both Taku and Ant entertained us, thrilled us, made us wait in breathless anticipation… and at the end of Q3 on Saturday afternoon, CELEBRATION!!!! 

All of the team’s crew members assembled at the front of the garages to greet TS to celebrate the team’s best ever grid positions: Taku 10^th, Ant 11^th.  Taku was lifted sky high by all of them and almost went crowd surfing for a moment! We were shouting as loud as we can (damn!! forgot to bring the airhorn!!!) and shaking our arms and fists. I can also see that he was looking towards us and I know he saw all of our banners in front of their pits. What he did next was something that will stay with me forever.  Taku came out of the pits to wave to us, double thumbs up, and to thank us for supporting him on the pitwall whilst we all almost lose our voices from cheering him so loudly from our grandstand seats.  I seriously can’t think of another F1 racer, past, present or future, that will do something like that for his/her fans.  That was something very special.

This however, was just the beginning of an amazing first half of the year for our friends at Super Aguri F1 Team.