The track was designed to be as a 2 1/2 mile high-banked super-speedway, but there was not enough money to complete the project and only one of the bankings was ever designed. Converted to a road course, the circuit opened in December of 1965 and proved to be somewhat dangerous with the banked turn regularly resulting in major accidents. A new part of track was built to counteract the problem, and the resultant 2.7 mile course proved more successful. The speedway brought the first Formula 1 race to Japan at the end of the 1976 season. The race had a dramatic World Championship battle between James Hunt and Niki Lauda, and in awful rainy conditions, Hunt earned enough points to win the title. Mario Andretti would win the race.
There was less celebration after the second race in 1977 after Gilles Villeneuve was involved in a crash that killed two people on the side of the track. It would be the second and last race the Fuji circuit would host a F1 race and when Japan earned another race on the F1 schedule 10 years later, it went to Suzuka instead.
Fuji remains a popular sports car championship venue and is often used for national races. In recent years, Toyota has begun plans to upgrade the circuit in the hopes that it will re-earn the Japanese GP.
The Fuji circuit is well known to fans of the game Pole Position, as cars raced on the circuit in the popular coin-op.