---
title: "Video: F1 Cars Tackle Japan’s Toughest Road"
description: "Motorhead Hakone Hillclimb Pt. II features classic Lotus and Benetton racecars."
date: "2015-12-28"
modified: "2015-12-28"
authors:
  - name: "Chris Cantle"
    job_title: "West Coast Editor"
    link: "https://www.thedrive.com/authors/chris-cantle"
url: "https://www.thedrive.com/article/1462/video-f1-cars-tackle-japans-toughest-road"
categories:
  - "News"
tags:
  - "Formula One"
  - "Japan"
---

# Video: F1 Cars Tackle Japan’s Toughest Road

![](<https://www.thedrive.com/wp-content/uploads/images-by-url-td/content/archive-images/screen-shot-2015-12-28-at-3.55.05-pmn.jpg>)
*\<em\>www.thedrive.com</em>*

Last year, the maniacs from Japan’s *Motorhead* magazine [ran the Hakone Turnpike as a hillclimb](<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORu58PY1S_g>). It was an act of love and obsession in a land of strict regulation. A tribute to a spectacular strip of asphalt that ducks and weaves over the mountains southwest of Tokyo, written in giant inky drift-marks and V8 echoes that probably still bounce off stone canyons a year later. They rolled cameras. It was glorious. It was art.

This year they did it again. With Formula 1 cars.

That’s a [John Player Lotus 78](<https://www.thedrive.com/accelerator/178/light-em-up-racings-13-greatest-tobacco-liveries>) and a Benetton B189, unless I’m mistaken. The two cars sound absolutely diabolical as they trace the Hakone, their giant aero waggling against the strain of common pavement. Word has it the *Motorhead* story also features a Porsche 962 making a run at the Hakone Turnpike; you’ll have to [buy the latest issue](<https://motorheadmagazine.jp/>), or wait out their next video to know for sure. We’re not the patient type. See you at the newsstand.

https://youtube.com/embed/aEVq-Gs2BT4

## Author
Honorary laboratory rat Chris Cantle represents *The Drive* from his home state of California. He is a keen motorcyclist, experimenter in fringe motorsports and an NSAID enthusiast. He cut his teeth with *Cycle World* and *Road & Track* as a writer, photographer and video producer before making Time Inc. his home.

### Author social links  
[Instagram](<https://instagram.com/chriscantle>)  
[Twitter](<https://twitter.com/chriscantle>)