Superleague Formula - background and general discussion thread

[OJB]

I'm quite looking forward to this. The calibre of drivers isn't too bad in my opinion. I rate Doornbos, Toccacelo and Dalziel, while the others aren't too far off really - no worse than some A1 GP drivers.

The cars look quite good in their footy get up, but everything seems a tad rushed to me. I suppose they are trying to coincide with the new football season, but it'd probably work better as a winter series and kicked off a little later.

Between that, A1GP and GP2 Asia, it would give motorsport a good all year round exposure, which can only be a good thing.

[chunterer]

I too would rather give the series a chance, even if the cars re of dubious heritage and perhaps a tad 'agricultural'

There's a handful of 'big name' clubs , others will watch with interest and I'd be willing to bet that QPR will enter next year even if they don't get promoted to the Premier League.

[Aslak Vind]

The car is a hoot to drive, according to Andersen.

So let us see

[Speedblood]

Right tickets ordered and hotel booked for sunday night.
Gonna chance this event so lets see what happens. If not EuroBOSS will be there

Never gonna really see V12's in single seaters anywhere else. Ironically EuroBOSS is one of the few series where you may still

[BOSSman]

I have also heard that they must probably cancel the next 'Superleague' test session which is planned for 21st August, because of the delay in the delivery of wheels from OZ.

Btw. I can not understand why gives people which say things like "I look forward to this series failing, hopefully in the near future."! These peoples are in my opinion definitely no real motorsport fans!

These cars are very spectacular, the current drivers line-up is good, the weekend qualifying and race format sounds very entertaining, the different football teams standing strong behind their teams to support it..., why give them no chance, says us why?

Christian

[Speedblood]

Originally Posted by EuroBOSS

I have also heard that they must probably cancel the next 'Superleague' test session which is planned for 21st August, because of the delay in the delivery of wheels from OZ.

Btw. I can not understand why gives people which say things like "I look forward to this series failing, hopefully in the near future."! These peoples are in my opinion definitely no real motorsport fans!

These cars are very spectacular, the current drivers line-up is good, the weekend qualifying and race format sounds very entertaining, the different football teams standing strong behind their teams to support it..., why give them no chance, says us why?

Christian

hear hear

[Aslak Vind]

Originally Posted by EuroBOSS

I have also heard that they must probably cancel the next 'Superleague' test session which is planned for 21st August, because of the delay in the delivery of wheels from OZ.

Btw. I can not understand why gives people which say things like "I look forward to this series failing, hopefully in the near future."! These peoples are in my opinion definitely no real motorsport fans!

These cars are very spectacular, the current drivers line-up is good, the weekend qualifying and race format sounds very entertaining, the different football teams standing strong behind their teams to support it..., why give them no chance, says us why?

Christian

DITTO!

Well spoken!

[Thundersports]

Well said Christian any motorsport series/event which opens up a new audience and potencial fans can only be positive. Plus they will get to see F1 cars in the flesh with Euroboss which many attending will have been casual TV viewers and will be able to relate to the cars.

[Go_For_Pole]

Originally Posted by EuroBOSS

These cars are very spectacular, the current drivers line-up is good, the weekend qualifying and race format sounds very entertaining, the different football teams standing strong behind their teams to support it..., why give them no chance, says us why?

To the defence of non motorsport fans, the cars burn themselves and oil the track pretty spectacularly, the engines can not rev to their limit, the drivers (apart from very few exceptions) are either people who did not make it or youngsters who shouldn't be let in such a car based on their creditentials, the team list goes from respectable to questionable (and that's polite), the weekend format will be judged if they ever get to complete a day of proper private testing and when they get proper wheel rims (or whatever next).

[Aslak Vind]

I cant see the technical gremlins being any worse than the introduction of the latest generation GP2 cars. That was a joke as wel..

[bradrive]

Originally Posted by Go_For_Pole

the drivers (apart from very few exceptions) are either people who did not make it or youngsters who shouldn't be let in such a car based on their creditentials, the team list goes from respectable to questionable (and that's polite).

Club/Teams/Driver
Milan/Playteam/Doornbos&Giannoccaro
Galatasaray/Playteam/Pierguidi&Tahinci
Dortmund/Zakspeed/Rigon&Danner
Guoan/Zakspeed/Tung?
Flamengo/Astromega/Rocha
Anderlecht/Astromega/Andersen?/Verdonck?
Porto/West_Tec/Monteiro?
Glasgow/West-Tec/Dalziel
Basel/GU Racing/Wissel/Gaitan?
Olympiacos/GU Racing/La Rosa
Eindhoven/Azerti/Buurman
Al Ain/Azerti/Zuber
Corinthians/Eurointernational/Pizzonia
Moscow?/Eurointernational?/Petrov?
Roma/FMSI/Toccacelo&Ricci
Lyon/FMSI?/Gommendy?/Philippe?
Sevilla/GTA/Garcia/Soucek
Tottenham/GTA/Kerr?
Liverpool?/?/?
Bayern?/?/?

Playteam, Astromega/Zakspeed/West-Tec/GTA/FMSI are decent teams.
Doornbos,Pierguidi,Rigon,Tung,Rocha,Andersen,Monteiro,Dalziel,LaRosa,Buurman,Zuber,Pizzonia,Petrov,T occacelo,Ricci,Gommendy;Philippe,Garcia,Soucek;Kerr are decent drivers.
The series is offering drivers without big sponsors to try to keep their singleseater career for 1 more year alive.
There is nothing wrong with that.

[META4]

Anybody has some more informations about Azerti?

[ivanalesi]

To be honest, I don't give a damn about football. I don't give a damn about "country vs country" in ugly cars, so I don't watch A1 GP. But I would watch SL because of the V12, it's the only thing that attracts me. This year I will probably watch A1, because of F2004, it was such a dominant car. Anyway, it's good to have such championships if they provide a place where drivers can get paid for racing and have a good career. Well, smth along these lines Neel Jani said after winning A1.

Actually if these are the drivers, excl. GU-Racing's, the others are reasonable. I would love to see in the winter races some Europeans from FNippon, like Lotterer and Duval.

[Dan Friel]

I just don't really "get it".. The link with the football clubs really doesn't make it attractive to me.

And I really don't understand why after years of planning and with two weeks until the first event, there's so many entry list questions and they're cancelling tests because lack of parts. It doesn't come across very well, and i am a "real motorsport fan".

[bradrive]

Originally Posted by META4

Anybody has some more informations about Azerti?

link: http://english.psv.nl/web/show/id=58980/contentid=23644

[jondownunder]

Liverpool confirmed - no mention of team or driver yet:
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/69786

[Go_For_Pole]

Originally Posted by bradrive

Playteam, Astromega/Zakspeed/West-Tec/GTA/FMSI are decent teams.

Isn't there a difference from being a decent GT team to a decent 700hp formula team? Besides, your list already has a team that will not take part and your list does not include GU and Azerti (ie Racing For Belgium I have been told).

Originally Posted by bradrive

Doornbos, Pierguidi, Rigon, Tung, Rocha, Andersen, Monteiro, Dalziel, LaRosa, Buurman, Zuber, Pizzonia, Petrov, Toccacelo, Ricci, Gommendy, Philippe, Garcia, Soucek, Kerr are decent drivers.

Let's wait and see how many of those will actually turn up to race if Donington happens. You might just end up watching Danner, Gaitan, Tahinci and Wissel instead.

Originally Posted by bradrive

The series is offering drivers without big sponsors to try to keep their singleseater career for 1 more year alive. There is nothing wrong with that.

Nothing apart from wasting 400k for a race drive or 100k for a rookie drive.

[the sniper]

Originally Posted by EuroBOSS

Btw. I can not understand why gives people which say things like "I look forward to this series failing, hopefully in the near future."! These peoples are in my opinion definitely no real motorsport fans!

Damn you got me, I am actually a big Beach Volleyball fan and know nothing about motorsport. I just spend time on Motorsport sites/forums for the hell of it...

Originally Posted by EuroBOSS

These cars are very spectacular, the current drivers line-up is good, the weekend qualifying and race format sounds very entertaining, the different football teams standing strong behind their teams to support it..., why give them no chance, says us why?

OK, I'll say you why I don't like these Mickey Mouse series like Superleague, and to a lesser extent, A1GP and International Formula Masters.

I'll start with Superleague. The idea for this championship is pointless, why do football and Motorsport have to be linked? The teams have no actual link to the cars that hold their names, neither do the drivers or the teams that are running them. They might not even share the same sponsors, a couple of months ago the Organisers said that they wanted Superleague to be an extra way for the clubs to make money, they explained that in football they only have so much room on their shirts for sponsors, so this is a way for more sponsors to be able to be involved in the club. But they wouldn't be involved in the club, they'd be involved in a polished turd version of Euro F3000.

I think that it is ridiculous to think that football fans will show the same aligance to a driver they've never heard as they do to their club, though Football is a very fickle sport (fans follow their local team which is made up of people who were born on the other side of Europe and live nowhere near the club itself, then leave at the drop of a hat when another local club for local people offers them more money, with fans then disappointed by the lack of loyalty shown by the foreign multi-millionaire players) I don't think even they would fall for this tosh. I look forward to hearing how many people in Football shirts turned up at Donington Park, or how many people will fulfil Superleague president Alex Andreu wish of "hearing fans break into You'll Never Walk Alone at a motorsport event" (problem is he wasn't joking!). I will be surprised if there is a larger crowd then if it had just been EuroBOSS on the schedule, as the only people I can see interested in Superleague are curious hardcore single seater fans.

My final major problem with Superleague is that it won't bring new fans to the sport. If you only went to a motor race because your football team had a loose association with it, then I don't think you'd turn up for a Formula 3 race the next week. If it's going to have any effect on motorsport as a whole it will only be negative. If you would, look at motorsport as a pie (trust me, I'm trying to get at something here ), each championship is a piece of the pie, every time a new championship comes along the pieces of pie (i.e. Audience, Sponsors interest) get smaller, then in the end some of the pieces become so small that they fall apart. I can see this becoming an bigger problem if a World Wide recession ever happens.

A1GP is another series I don't really like, but credit where it's due, it was the first big thing to fill the winter gap. I find it pointless to call it the 'World Cup of Motorsport' though (another go at getting Football fans, how many people have been brought into the sport through A1GP?) because it is nothing like a World Cup, most teams mechanics are not from the country their representing, jeez, most of the drivers have a tenuous link to their selected country. If it hadn't been for A1GP running over winter, would it be in the strong position it is today? Would it even exist today?

Then you have things like International Formula Master (or GP3) and the new Formula 2, they are just duplicates of existing championships. Though not bad to watch, they end up just having the best (or worst) of the rest i.e. drivers who couldn't get into F3 or GP2.

I don't want to look like I'm against all new championships, because I am not. The IRC (Intercontinental Rally Challenge) introduced the S2000 rally regulations, which will be the base for the new WRC regs in 2010. The Euro STC (now WTCC) was another worthwhile championship, it was a new home for the remaining Super Touring Cars and it introduced the S2000 touring car regulations. The rebirth of the DTM definitely added to the sport. One of the best new series though was GP2, F3000 needed replacing and it accomplished that successfully.

Sorry for such a long post, but when people say I am not a motorsport fan because I don't like these gimmicky series, I thought I'd better try and explain my view.

[FIRE]

Originally Posted by META4

Anybody has some more informations about Azerti?

They raced as Racing for Belgium in Renault Mégane Trophy, WTCC (Alfa 156) Romeo and other touring car and GT series. I think this is their debut in single seaters.


I am not convinced about this series. This series is only interesting if your favourite football club is involved. If you are a Manchester United, Real Madrid or Inter Milan fan this series isn't interesting (except maybe if you biggest rival club is crashing ). Compared to A1GP this series has in potential a much smaller fanbase.

[kerrmanningjarv]

A1GP is another series I don't really like, but credit where it's due, it was the first big thing to fill the winter gap. I find it pointless to call it the 'World Cup of Motorsport' though (another go at getting Football fans, how many people have been brought into the sport through A1GP?) because it is nothing like a World Cup, most teams mechanics are not from the country their representing, jeez, most of the drivers have a tenuous link to their selected country. If it hadn't been for A1GP running over winter, would it be in the strong position it is today? Would it even exist today?

That's a bit harsh... you can only say that about a few of them.

[dave not neil]

Originally Posted by the sniper

...most teams mechanics are not from the country their representing, jeez, most of the drivers have a tenuous link to their selected country. If it hadn't been for A1GP running over winter, would it be in the strong position it is today? Would it even exist today?

But england manager, Fabio Capello, isn't english. However the players that play for the team are english.
So just because, say, Team India, have english mechanics, it doesn't make the team any less Indian. Karthikeyan is doing the on track battle, which is what its all about. An Indian battling for the World Cup.

[Dan Friel]

Surely linking it to football teams will actually limit potential interest?? Football fans certainly won't be interested in watching a sport where rival teams are running, and how many fans are actually motorsport fans in the first place? And then it's all a bit gimmicky and is full of second grade racers - so real motorsport fans aren't going to bowled over either (there are far better series already in place).

I just don't get the concept. Will be interesting to watch it develop - where is it being shown on TV?? Presumably live on Sky alongside the footie coverage?? I expect that the quality of the package will having a big bearing on its success.

[Rob29]

Originally Posted by Dan Friel

I just don't get the concept. Will be interesting to watch it develop - where is it being shown on TV?? Presumably live on Sky alongside the footie coverage?? I expect that the quality of the package will having a big bearing on its success.

No info to date.I guess schedules are already full? First weekend (31st) we already have BTCC,WTCC,DTM,Indycar,& NASCAR live on TV. We will be lucky if we get highlights weeks later as with World Series Renault,British F3,Indylights,etc

[duke_toaster]

Any rough guesses on broadcaster? Murdochvision?

[RichardRenes]

People forget that underneath the football makeup, there is a serious racecar with a 750 bhp V12!!!! engine powering it

Should bring some people to a circuit anytime.

My favourite team, Feyenoord Rotterdam, is not participating, but that doesn't mean I am not going to watch some races when they get close enough ( A1 still has my priority though ).