A1GP to return in 2011/2012?

[dave not neil]

Originally Posted by courageous

10 Host Countries Within:
•Africa
•Asia
•Central America
•Europe
•Oceania
•South America
•The Middle East


The omission of North America is interesting - either they have forgot about it, or they have had advanced negotiations with circuits and this is the only region they haven't been able to do something with

Or because Paul Cherry isn't actually allowed into the USA...

[mountainstar]

The whole thing sounds pretty amateur to me, so far.

I can't see the point of it either with Superleague out there doing a great job.

[Peat]

I can. There are always rich kids with rich dads out there willing to pay for drives. Hence why we have so many junior formulae. I just don't know if we have reached saturation yet...

[dave not neil]

Originally Posted by mountainstar

The whole thing sounds pretty amateur to me, so far.

I can't see the point of it either with Superleague out there doing a great job.

However nobody actually see's the point of it. They even had to put national flags on the cars for the china races because the chinese didn't understand what they were watching, and wanted A1GP instead!

[ptclaus98]

Originally Posted by dave not neil

Or because Paul Cherry isn't actually allowed into the USA...

Or because it's not a real series.

[mountainstar]

Who is Paul Cherry, the name sounds familiar?

[cos]

Originally Posted by mountainstar

Who is Paul Cherry, the name sounds familiar?

Previously fairly high-up in A1GP - 'general manager' or similar. Also Ex-Sigma CART boss, and the man behind the company that was meant to deliver the Formula Superfund chassis.

[Thundersports]

And F3000 team owner does a bit of analysis on Indycar on Sky.

[mountainstar]

Originally Posted by cos

Previously fairly high-up in A1GP - 'general manager' or similar. Also Ex-Sigma CART boss, and the man behind the company that was meant to deliver the Formula Superfund chassis.

Ah yes, thanks.

[jondownunder]

Originally Posted by Roninho

Well, i'm just going to wait and see what they are going to offer, but based on the website and the timing of it all i'm not expecting anything that will be around for long.

Yes, the website is amateurish beyond belief. I presume Paul Cherry put it together himself? If these new series are serious in their intentions, they should have a professional looking website with the key details on it from day 1.

And I'm not a marketing person but even I can see that "A10 World Series" is a ridiculously bad name.

I'd love to see A1GP back, but sorry, but this is hardly a promising start.

[jondownunder]

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/89003

AUTOSPORT understands that an early-February launch date has been pencilled in for the one-make single-seater series, which would then kick off in October.

The A10 World Series would, like A1GP, pitch national teams against each other. It will also run through the winter with a calendar comprising a majority of non-European races, with a focus on emerging motorsport markets.

[Rob29]

Half a page of print in todays issue of Autosport,with no more info.Hope something comes of this as a winter series is certainly needed-nothing serious to watch until march.6 pages devoted to Massa-only single seater racing reported one paragraph on NZ Toyota series.F1 drivers used to race in NZ in January.

[mountainstar]

Originally Posted by jondownunder

And I'm not a marketing person but even I can see that "A10 World Series" is a ridiculously bad name.

No kidding. A10??

I doubt this ever makes it off the ground. It sounds like one of those things people throw up at the ceiling to see if it sticks i.e. investors come out of the woodwork.

[Roninho]

Originally Posted by jondownunder

Yes, the website is amateurish beyond belief. I presume Paul Cherry put it together himself? If these new series are serious in their intentions, they should have a professional looking website with the key details on it from day 1.

And I'm not a marketing person but even I can see that "A10 World Series" is a ridiculously bad name.

I'd love to see A1GP back, but sorry, but this is hardly a promising start.

Yeah, well the A1 name was allready a lousy one (i mean A for the continents because well almost all continents start with an A ), but this is even worse.

We see all these new series arrive, but if these guys just looked at the (recent) history of the sport they would know that simply showing up with an idea isn't enough.
If you look at the somewhat higher calibre autosportseries then there are 2 businessmodels that seem to be working:
1.) You are a low cost serie (as in operating costs of the serie) that can survive by entrance fees and some small sponsorship & track sanction fees (a la british f3). That means offer something that is valuable to junior drivers: a relatively low amount of money to run a car in this serie and if you are succesfull you have a good chance to get close to f1.
2.) You are a high cost serie (as in operating costs of the serie and more then likely also running costs of the cars) a la indycar, DTM, WRC, etc.. You can survive by manufacturer involvement, tv-revenues & high tv-exposure, attendance and sponsorship. If you want to be succesfull in this you have to offer something unique that will attract these items. Indycar has indy, DTM has the support from the german manufacturers because they are the german #1 autosport serie, etc.

I see nothing in this A10 website that would suggest that either they will be a better solution to a current succesfull junior serie, and i certainly do not think they have the unique position and the finances to be succesfull at business model 2.

[NaBUru38]

A also accounts for being the first letter of the alphabet (e.g. "alpha male").

[duke_toaster]

The thing is that a nations cup event of motorsport is a great idea, just that the A1GP implementation was a bad one, and only one I can genuinely think of as being possible would require a fair bit of political will and FIA/ASN involvement. The latter would be needed to make it a valid competition, the A1GP franchise system lead to some major motorsport countries being missed out; Spain, Finland and Sweden never had A1GP teams, Japan went away early on. I'm not going to bore you and suggest how I think it could be done (unless you want me to). A motor racing would cup, if done in a way it could claim the limelight once a year rather than be part of the background ten times, could make motorsport a more popular thing in some countries by allowing people to latch on to a national team (and by that I mean a team, not one driver).