A1 GP Reboot on the Cards - "World Cup of Motorsport"

[poosemon]

Seen this appear in a few news outlets today;

https://news.sky.com/story/heavyweight-execs-seek-...

- Details/Dates etc are few and far between but the stories seem to suggest the series would be during F1 off season, and around 12 races
- Talks with car and engine manufacturers are underway, according to insiders, with a working prototype already built.
- Aims to be 2nd fastest formula behind F1
- Circa 20 Teams competing

Would be interesting, hopefully if in the UK at a non-Silverstone venue. I did go to the A1GP at Brands and was a good event to spectate and pretty much the fastest thing outside of F1 I have seen go around the track.

[mat205125]

Will be interesting to see how this develops, and what type of driver it attracts.

Would be brilliant to see a grid that included the likes of Button, Webber, Fisichella, Brundle, and the like, for a handful of exhibition races at various tracks during the year.

Please lets keep these to REAL race tracks, and not as a truly mickey mouse show at street circuits, where more senior drivers may be put off by the risks of injury ........ none of us bounce and recover as well as we used to when we were in our 20's after all.

[Megaflow]

Given that the F1 season now runs March to November, that gives very little time to squeeze a 12 race calendar in, and it you could, it would likely all have to be in the southern hemisphere for the weather.

If it happens, which is a big if, I predict it last less time than the original one did.

[Andy 308GTB]

The original A1GP cars with the Zytec engines were awesome. The exhaust noise on the overrun was very special - something to do with the 8 pipes into 1 exhaust system I understand. Those engines were replaced with Ferrari engines which weren't quite so special.

A big engined single seater series would be good to see again but the cost appears to be prohibitive.

[poosemon]

Couple from when we saw them at Brands.

2009 - How not to do Paddock Hill Bend


2008 - Nice full grids and busy(ish) crowd! They do have an old school look to them (or is that because the pictures were 14/15 years ago!)

[Andy 308GTB]

poosemon said:

They do have an old school look to them (or is that because the pictures were 14/15 years ago!)

I think that was one of the good things about them, wide tyres and big spoilers - not quite F5000 though!

[jurbie]

Surely they should wait for Formula E to die before introducing another gimmicky single-seater series?

We've gone from A1GP (countries), GP Masters (nostalgia), Superleague Formula (football), Formula E (electric) W Series (woman), and now back to A1GP.

It amazes me that anyone with an ounce of understanding of how motorsport works would even consider this but then maybe the actual idea is to fleece a bunch of gullible investors.

[LukeBrown66]

The problem is you know the format, they will try and tie it into a docu series like f1 did, and think that the whole world is going to be interested in it, when in reality they are only interested in f1. Well not me at least thank goodness, its garbage.

But this is a stupid idea.

If hte Middle east were backing it, f1 ought to be concerned however, as they will throw money at it.

[freedman]

One of motorsports biggest issues is that there are too many series

We don’t need another one

[Andy 308GTB]

jurbie said:

Surely they should wait for Formula E to die before introducing another gimmicky single-seater series?

We've gone from A1GP (countries), GP Masters (nostalgia), Superleague Formula (football), Formula E (electric) W Series (woman), and now back to A1GP.

It amazes me that anyone with an ounce of understanding of how motorsport works would even consider this but then maybe the actual idea is to fleece a bunch of gullible investors.

I totally agree with you about the various formats being nonsense but the Superleague Formula were impressive cars: 750 bhp, 4.2 litre, V12 engines! On the Brands Hatch GP loop they were worth watching

[Thundersports]

Andy 308GTB said:

I totally agree with you about the various formats being nonsense but the Superleague Formula were impressive cars: 750 bhp, 4.2 litre, V12 engines! On the Brands Hatch GP loop they were worth watching

Agree the Superleague cars were more impressive than the A1 Lola Zyteks which weren't to shabby though. The odd Superleague car (Panoz DP01 chassis) and Lola A1 cars appear in the European Boss series. What we're crying out for is a series akin to Formula 5000 big noisy powerful engines without to much aero and silly gimmicks. Both those series ticked those boxes but failed due to the promotion and the whole Nations/Football narrative. A huge amount of debt was left when A1 failed which will put alot of investors off.

Edited by Thundersports on Tuesday 23 May 00:14

[Sandpit Steve]

poosemon said:

Seen this appear in a few news outlets today;

https://news.sky.com/story/heavyweight-execs-seek-...

- Details/Dates etc are few and far between but the stories seem to suggest the series would be during F1 off season, and around 12 races
- Talks with car and engine manufacturers are underway, according to insiders, with a working prototype already built.
- Aims to be 2nd fastest formula behind F1
- Circa 20 Teams competing

Would be interesting, hopefully if in the UK at a non-Silverstone venue. I did go to the A1GP at Brands and was a good event to spectate and pretty much the fastest thing outside of F1 I have seen go around the track.

If it’s to be a winter series, then where are they going to race?

The obvious answer is the southern hemisphere, the Middle East, and perhaps Japan, because no-one in Europe is going to want to hold an event in January. Can they sell enough tickets, or at least get enough cash from the TV rights, to make the series viable with all those long-haul flights? Presumably they’ll need Grade 1 circuits if they’re aiming to be faster than F2, and there’s not a lot of those around.

That all said, would love to see some old-school bruisers, with big engines and a loud noise, a driver line-up of old pros and young upstarts. Sadly we’re unlikely to see any current F1 drivers though, the teams are all now way too scared of someone getting injured in the winter.

[jurbie]

Andy 308GTB said:

I totally agree with you about the various formats being nonsense but the Superleague Formula were impressive cars: 750 bhp, 4.2 litre, V12 engines! On the Brands Hatch GP loop they were worth watching

It's probably the only series I recall with any fondness, purely because of what a monster those cars were. I doubt we'll see the like of them again.

[Tony1963]

I went to Friday practice for the first event at Brands.
I can’t see any new money being invested unless the cars are horrible, expensive, heavy hybrids. In which case, few will watch, few will invest, and it won’t get off the ground.

Us lot would probably go for 6.0 litre V8s, basic aero (just for the sponsors) no ground effects, manual six speed transmission, narrow, and 700kg with driver. But the world has, frustratingly, moved on from what actually creates good racing.

I’ll be at Brands this weekend while the overweight SUVs drive line-astern around the principality for a couple of hours.



Adam Khan in the Pakistan car at Brands

[GlobalRacer]

They should do a European series with the Australian S5000 cars. Fast cars with not too much aero and sound fantastic.

[Andy 308GTB]

GlobalRacer said:

They should do a European series with the Australian S5000 cars. Fast cars with not too much aero and sound fantastic.

I could live with that!

The car uses a 5.2-litre naturally-aspirated quad-cam Ford Coyote V8 that is modified by InnoV8, and has an output of 560 hp

[bumskins]

GlobalRacer said:

They should do a European series with the Australian S5000 cars. Fast cars with not too much aero and sound fantastic.

Agreed, was unaware of this series until last year but it's a great spectacle

[sayerbloke]

I was at that first ever A1GP event at Brands too. I bought a couple of the race programmes, thinking they’d be worth something in 20-30 years. Haven’t gone looking on eBay but I suspect they won’t be enabling me to retire any time soon