TBK-Light.com

The complex cars like GP2s and WSBR require entire teams to run them though. To run that many cars you need a lot of rich people, or sponsors to fund it. Sponsors won't want a series with no coverage, and nobody is really that interested in a Euroboss series that doesn't fit into the ladder because it's a dead end series. So it's completely unworkable.

Well yeah, it's more of a pipe dream of course....

However there's more to racing, even single seaters, than where they fit in the ladder series...

If A1GP hadn't have been as mismanaged, it could've proved that itself.

Whatshisname should never have sold A1GP to that criminal.

Sorry but this is a silly statement. A1GP did prove itself, very well in fact. But it was never going to be financially viable as a long term series without significant sponsorship.

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BTCC Pick Em's Champion 2010
Formula Fun Cup Champion 2013
http://www.the-fastlane.co.uk

I'm going to agree with this. I mainly watch top series viewer (F1, Indycar) but occasionnaly have a glance at the other championships to see who's climbing to F1 next.

Now despite being more than a casual viewer I have no idea what's the difference between F2 and GP3 for example, and where every series stands from a driver progression view.

It used to be easy: F-ford/F-renault --> F3 --> F3000 or GP2 --> F1 eventually skipping something along the way.

They can create different championships but at least make them a similar build, like the national F3 championships, so people who aren't motorsport specialists can figure out what's going on.

A1GP was big in the Netherlands, I think because it was on a commercial TV station and not on Pay-TV like almost all other country's. Free TV coverage, some big name drivers and good racing should be enough to make it a success. Then it's up to the people running it to turn it into a profitable series.

As the one "Motorsport Guy" I had a lot of my casual friends asking me about A1GP in its first couple of seasons, and it was ONLY on Sky Sports here, so not exactly the most popular of channels, numbers wise.

There was a bit of a marketing push in the first year that wasn't really capitilised on, but it did get its name out there.

They'd probably have to do two or three times that work to get their name known this time around....can they manage that?

When A1GP launched it was done so at a very similar time as the Grand Prix Masters concept, which most of the public seemed to sway towards because of the draw of the drivers involved. However, A1GP showed how to put on a show without the big names and got the public's attention. The racing was normally pretty good also thanks to that Lola chassis and tyre combo. A1GP lasted 3 or 4 seasons without being a traditional wrung on the ladder and helped make names out of some of the drivers (Nico Hulkenburg anyone?). Whereas it's season 1 competitor GP Masters lasted what, 3 races?

The point being that A1GP did pretty well considering.

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BTCC Pick Em's Champion 2010
Formula Fun Cup Champion 2013
http://www.the-fastlane.co.uk

A1GP had some bloody good drivers and the cars sounded awesome. I remember being wowed out by them at Brands Hatch once because they just seemed too big for the track! Checo Perez also started one race. It was a good winter series.

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Dan Wheldon | 1978 - 2011

Going to South Africa and Qatar for their first two races wasn't a bright idea.

Yes true, but those venues were probably more financially viable than some alternatives.

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BTCC Pick Em's Champion 2010
Formula Fun Cup Champion 2013
http://www.the-fastlane.co.uk

Exactly, and sponsorship is hard to find when you don't fit into the ladder. A1GP was a decent place to stop for some, but that just makes it equal to DTM - once you're in, it's extremely hard to get out and for a few single seater drivers it's where your career ends.

A1GP also had the same issue IRL had in it's first year - running in the off season gets in the way of driver and sponsor contracts as they no longer sync with the rest of the motorsport world.

Great idea, mediocre execution, poorly planned.

Ok, so the last page had nothing to do with superleague formula at all...

Yeah well in the absence of any Superleague Formula news we might as well talk about whatever.....

A1GP's off season nature was actually its biggest strength, gave us something to watch when there was no other racing (whereas if it raced traditionally it'd get lost among GP2, WSBR, Auto GP, F2 and all the other series that cram themselves into the weekends when F1 isn't racing and try to vie for attention ) and some drivers used it to keep their skill set up if they didn't had an F1 testing gig or whatnot to keep them sharp......

I hope whoever wins this bidding war remembers that....

Driving in A1 should have been something like playing for your national football team. Regardless of sponsor contracts of your normal season team in whatever series you raced, you should have been able to get called up for an A1 race. Sadly it did not work out that way for most teams. They were stuck with 1 driver nobody knew most of the time. If more recent ex-F1 racers like Verstappen had raced there it would have gotten more attention (Alesi, why he never drove for France?)

I'm a bit bored, so i decided to look up what happened to the drivers that were last season in Superleague. I was astonished to see that most of the drivers haven't raced anything of worth this season, considering their talent.

Gommendy, Wissel, Bamber, Ho-Pin Tung, Dolby, Tappy and Soucek haven't barely done a thing this season.

Pin Tung is in the Carrera Cup Asia and Tappy is in the Blancpain series, but that's it.

Those 2 races last season pretty much killed their carrers.

Because its a series which doesn't fit into the ladder. There's no where after this series.

Earl Bamber does driving training in Malaysia now, which is a shame because he was a top notch driver

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"An idea whose time has come cannot be stopped by any army or any government"


3x TBKL rFactor Hillclimb champion

NASCAR seems like the logical next step for SLF drivers.

I don't miss the drivers, PR, wonky concept and football connections.

But i do miss the car.

It's a shame no ladder series has expressed interest in those cars (or a modified/improved version of them ) for their next chassis generation as they had great pace and obviously produced amazing racing, which is why I liked them in the first place.

Then you'd have the best of both worlds with great chasis racing as a step on the ladder so maybe some drivers and teams might give a shit then

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RIP Birmingham Wheels: here's some of the crash videos I recorded when it was there:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIaKIE ... 5t9d5PvoHA

Twitter:

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