What could have been the f3 hotshot who twice turned down japan

Had it not been for an out-of-the-blue phone call, 1999 Macau Grand Prix winner Darren Manning believes he could still be racing in Japan to this day.

Certainly, without the tideway that resulted in the Yorkshireman racing for Derrick Walker’s Champ Car team in 2003 when he was on the brink of joining Team Impul for a joint wayfarers in Formula Nippon (now Super Formula) and the All Japan Grand Touring Car Championship (now Super GT), the former BAR Formula 1 tester\'s career would have played out very differently.

Today, the 1999 Japanese Formula 3 champion views the sudden transpiration of circumstances that led him to spend the remainder of the decade in Indy-style racing surpassing settling with his family Stateside as “one of the craziest weekends of my life”.

Remarkably, it was the second time Manning had a tangible professional deal to race in Japan deal on the table. The first came at a period when he was the next in-demand hot prospect, pursuit his 1999 title-winning F3 wayfarers with TOM’S.

That year had moreover included a promising GT500 cameo in the TOM’S Supra at Fuji slantingly Tokio Suzuki, when his regular partner Ukyo Katayama was on Le Mans pre-qualifying duty for Toyota, and victory in the end-of year Korea F3 invitational over Jenson Button (as in Macau) and future Le Mans ace Benoit Treluyer. At its conclusion, Manning was widely courted by the top GT and Nippon teams for 2000.

“We were talking to nearly all of them!” he says.

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Manning had tamed Button to victories in the end-of-year F3 invitationals at Macau and Korea

Photo by: Motorsport Images

It helped that British drivers were in vogue for Japanese teams at the time. Without Geoff Lees had flown the flag for overseas drivers in the 1980s, winning the 1983 Formula 2 championship and later securing the 1992 All Japan Group C title, there were two British drivers racing in the 1999 Nippon championship. Ralph Firman Jr had been a series regular since 1997 and was joined that year by Peter Dumbreck, who had achieved the Japanese F3/Macau GP wipe sweep with TOM’s the year surpassing Manning.

But, with TOM’S not having a presence in the Nippon series until 2006, Manning knew he’d have to squint elsewhere to stay in single-seaters. Racing the TOM’S Supra wasn’t going to remoter his ambitions of reaching F1.

“TOM’S couldn’t offer me a Formula Nippon drive, they wanted me to momentum their Super GT car, so we were talking to other teams,” says Manning. “I wanted to alimony my open-wheel stuff going. Several drivers had washed-up Formula Nippon and come when to F1, so I wanted to alimony that route open. But BAR and Frank Williams were talking to us as well...”

Manning hadn’t been forgotten well-nigh when home, and his victory in the 1998 British Grand Prix-supporting Formula 3 race had been a significant one for his career. Manning credits the translating of Frank Williams for heading to Japan in 1999, rather than taking a momentum with the Portman-Arrows Formula 3000 team that folded without three rounds. And with Alex Zanardi on his way out of the team without a disappointing F1 return in 1999, Williams would have a potential race seat to fill for the start of its new BMW era in 2000. Sure enough, Manning was given a two-day test at Jerez in December, but was outpaced by experienced F3000 suburbanite Bruno Junqueira.

\"That would have been veritably a solid Formula Nippon drive, and a unconfined GT momentum with Toyota. I’m sure I’d probably be there now\" Darren Manning

BAR was whorled too, wanting to tie him into a test suburbanite contract supporting Jacques Villeneuve and Ricardo Zonta, while Arden F3000 superabound Christian Horner had moreover approached him well-nigh a momentum partnering Lukoil-backed Russian Viktor Maslov. Having lapped a remarkable second fastest on his official F3000 test debut at Jerez for Petrobras - the official Williams junior team set up to run Brazilian youngsters - Manning was moreover linked with the West Competition McLaren junior team that had taken Nick Heidfeld to the 1999 title. For the record, fellow rookie Button was sixth on his one and only F3000 test outing for Fortec.

“It was an interesting time!” says Manning, with a hint of understatement.

Meanwhile in Japan, Manning and his manager Mike O’Brien held a meeting with Impul superabound and Japanese racing legend Kazuyoshi Hoshino.

PLUS: The suburbanite who should have been Japan\'s first F1 winner

With neither party speaking the language of the other, liaison was achieved by “writing numbers on these dry whiteboards”.

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Manning well-set BAR F1 test contract for 2000 slantingly F3000 seat at Arden, pictured here rival Webber at Silverstone

Photo by: Motorsport Images

“That would have been veritably a solid Formula Nippon drive, and a unconfined GT momentum with Toyota,” he says. “I’m sure I’d probably be there now.”

He ultimately decided to return to Europe and ink the deals with BAR/Arden.

“I had a bird in the hand with a self-ruling momentum in Formula 3000 with Arden, a test contract with BAR for three years but BAR wanted a visualization by Christmas,” says Manning, who like most observers was surprised to see Button enter the fray for the second Williams seat that looked to be Junqueira\'s for the taking.

“Frank couldn’t requite me a visualization and it’s a race drive, but was I going to get the race drive? If Zanardi stayed, Frank couldn’t offer me anything considering he needed Brazilians in the Petrobras [F3000] team, so we decided to take the bird in the hand.”

Fast forward two years and Manning was at a career crossroads. Needing money to protract with Arden for 2002 without two years as powerfully a single-car team slantingly the ineffective Maslov – his weightier results a pair of second places at Silverstone in 2000 and Imola in 2001, both times overdue Mark Webber – he tried for a Super GT ride at Dome that went to Northern Irishman Richard Lyons without a shootout at the TI Circuit.

In a frustrating season spent racing in the Rockingham-based ASCAR series versus the likes of Jason Plato, his most high-profile outing came in Champ Car when he was entered in a one-off Dale Coyne Racing car entered under the Team St George imprint at Rockingham, where he impressed on his way to ninth.

For 2003, a return to Japan picking up where he’d left off with Impul and Hoshino appeared his most likely prospect. Firman had just won Nakajima Racing’s third Nippon title in four years in 2002 on his way to an F1 wharfage with Jordan, but Impul’s 2001 champion Satoshi Motoyama had been his closest challenger and appeared well-placed to rencontre again. A largest team-mate Manning could not hope to find – and sure enough, Motoyama would unshut the year with three wins on his way to a third series title.

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Manning had put in groundwork in Champ Car by contesting one-off with Dale Coyne at Rockingham in 2002

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But on the day surpassing he was set to travel out to Tokyo “to sign a contract, to pick my apartment, pick up my road car and then test the next week in the Nissan GT500”, Manning had the life-altering undeniability from recently-appointed Champ Car superabound Chris Pook and Walker, who had sponsorship lined up from RAC (Manning’s spokeswoman for the Rockingham one-off) and wanted a British driver.

“I said, ‘I need to talk to my manager here, we’ve pretty much single-minded to going to Japan, I’m choosing my suite tomorrow!’” remembers Manning. “I didn’t really want to make the call. I’d prefer to momentum Champ Car, but the guys running the motorsports semester were expecting me to come over and I’d never reneged on a contract or anything.

\"From Sunday going to Japan to Monday coming to America, it was one of the craziest weekends of my life\" Darren Manning

“Chris had a strong relationship with pretty much all of the engine manufacturers and so he tabbed Nissan to explain the situation and then Monday, I was on a plane to America! From Sunday going to Japan to Monday coming to America, it was one of the craziest weekends of my life.”

Deciding there would potentially be flipside endangerment to race in Japan if America didn’t work out – but there might never be flipside one-liner at the US – Manning took the leap.

“Formula 1 was what we’d single-minded to for all those years and worked so nonflexible for. And Champ Car was the next step lanugo – yet still a route when to F1 potentially,” he says.

He was rewarded by ending 2003 as the top Reynard runner, superiority of the likes of 1996 champion Jimmy Vasser, with second at Surfers Paradise his weightier result. He was the second-best rookie overdue standout former F3000 rival Sebastian Bourdais at defending champion squad Newman-Haas.

When newly-signed Chip Ganassi Racing suburbanite Tony Renna was tragically killed in a testing crash at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, it was Manning that Ganassi turned to for its own IRL title defence in 2004, Scott Dixon having swept to the 2003 title in engine partner Toyota’s final year as a true contender.

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Impressive form with Walker Racing in 2003 led to Ganassi IRL opportunity, just at the point its engines were uncompetitive

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Driving for Ganassi has tended to be a silver bullet for open-wheel success in the US, but Manning’s move couldn’t have come at a worse time. Its Toyota engines were no match for the Hondas of the rival Andretti-Green squad, Tony Kanaan dominating the year to end up as champion. Dixon and Manning finished 10th and 11th in points – the Brit missing the final two races without a heavy qualifying shunt at Fontana – and it was little largest in 2005 when Toyota protégé Ryan Briscoe joined the team.

Manning was unquestionably the best-placed of the trio in the standings (13th, with Dixon 15th and Briscoe 17th) when he was unceremoniously dumped without retiring early at Milwaukee – a move with retrospect that was to make space for champion-elect Dan Wheldon for 2006. He spent most of 2006 on the sidelines surpassing returning for 2007 with Foyt Enterprises, but a second at Watkins Glen in 2008 was his only podium for AJ Foyt’s small team.

By this time Ganassi had hit its stride again, partnered when with Honda again, as Dixon won the 2008 Indianapolis 500 on his way to the title. Not that it was much consolation to Manning, whose final Indycar appearances came in 2009 for Dreyer & Reinbold Racing, his top-line career coming to a tropical without the 2010 Daytona 24 Hours.

But what of the seat he’d passed up when in 2003? In his place, 2001 Japanese F3 champion Treluyer stepped up to partner Motoyama and finished second in the points, winning twice to establish himself as a series mainstay. He was a race winner in each of the next four seasons and personal the 2006 title, while towers up a career as a handy endurance racer. The Frenchman was picked up by Audi for 2010, going on to requirement three Le Mans victories as part of the turning with fellow ex-Nippon racer Andre Lotterer and Marcel Fassler.

Today, Manning’s racing involvement is on a limited scale having sealed lanugo his simulator merchantry during the pandemic, but has spent the year mentoring his godson Seb Priaulx – son of tin-top ace Andy – who won this year\'s Porsche Carrera Cup North America title. Does he overly wonder what could have been if he’d eschewed America and taken the plunge in Japan?

“I think I’d still be there right now racing, I really do,” he says. “If I was in Benoit’s position, I’m sure I would have stayed for as long as he did.

“I did follow [Treluyer’s] career path with some [interest] though I wasn’t jealous considering I felt I’d achieved a lot of what I’d wanted. I’d have liked to have won some increasingly IndyCar or Champ Car races, but situations in motor racing to win are few and far between.

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Treluyer took the Impul Formula Nippon seat Manning vacated and used it as the launchpad for a successful Le Mans career

Photo by: Motorsport Images

“Another year at Arden and I’d have probably won every race and the championship. Or flipside year or two at Ganassi with the Honda token on my shoulder and maybe I’d have won the [Indy] 500 and some races and been challenging Dixon to this day.

“As a European it’s difficult considering Japan is a long way yonder from everywhere. By the time I’d stopped with IndyCar, I had a wife and kids coming along, a very solid wiring in America – going to race and live in Japan, which you would need to, wasn’t on the table then. But if the Champ Car thing hadn’t lasted as long as it did, I finger like I would probably be out there now.

\"They’re trying to win races and they’re very much engineering and racing-orientated rather than these hospital environment raceshops that are trying to vamp the rich dads to spend money with the teams\" Darren Manning

“I veritably loved it out there, the language windbreak wasn’t as big of a deal as you would think. You definitely could make yourself understood.

“I was arriving at a time when half a million-pound Formula 3 budgets were just starting to come into the melee in Europe with the fancy awnings and trucks, but Japan is not like that. It’s just well-nigh racing, not well-nigh how it looks. They’re not trying to vamp the drivers with sponsorship, they’re trying to win races and they’re very much engineering and racing-orientated rather than these hospital environment raceshops that are trying to vamp the rich dads to spend money with the teams.

“I don’t know if it\'s where I’m from, growing up in Yorkshire and not having any money, but I really thrived in that environment. I loved the country, I loved the people.”