Superleague Formula - background and general discussion thread

[Mak]

Like A1, SF is a very expensive series, and I hope that it does not follow A1's lead of just incresing debt until it is so debt ridden that it is unable to operate and has lots of debtors. On the outside it does look like a similar setup although it is much harder to find funds willing to put into such high risk schemes these days.

[notguilty]

yes Valles and Hitech will return in Liverpool colors. There is your front runner for the championship

[kerrmanningjarv]

Beijing Guoan (champions), Sevilla (race winners), Al Ain (some-time front-runners) and Borussia Dortmund (ditto Al Ain) all leave, meaning a 17 car grid... hmm.

[Roninho]

Originally Posted by Sirius Motorspo

My estimate with the current calendar would be about 2 mill. euros (not counting any VIP treatment) for a new team

It all depends if your driver comes with a budget or if you want to hire a pro, and if you have to hire outside technical assistance or have a crew of your own..

A 2 car GP2 team is +- 2.5 million euro for +- 10 raceweekends. No way 6 races with 1 car will be 2 mill euro in superleague.

[jab]

Originally Posted by kerrmanningjarv

Beijing Guoan (champions), Sevilla (race winners), Al Ain (some-time front-runners) and Borussia Dortmund (ditto Al Ain) all leave, meaning a 17 car grid... hmm.

No Pantano, then...

Not to mention the fact that Setanta are about to go under...not looking good

[duke_toaster]

They'll only get a TV partner that is also paying peanuts but will give them considerably better exposure, then

[kerrmanningjarv]

Pantano is now rumoured to drive for AS Roma instead, but that's just from a Belgian site that may or may not have the full story.

[eveningladies]

Originally Posted by kerrmanningjarv

Pantano is now rumoured to drive for AS Roma instead, but that's just from a Belgian site that may or may not have the full story.

He's just been confirmed at AC Milan

[jondownunder]

Now Pantano is confirmed at AC Milan, run by Azerti:

Edit: beaten to it!

http://www.superleagueformula.com/su...e-Formula-2009

I'm glad SLF make the teams running/managing the cars clear. If only A1GP would follow their lead.

[bella]

nelson panciatici has also been confirmed as driving the olympique lyonnais car which is being run by epsilon.

it is good for transparency to declare the teams, though i can see that maybe a1 think it might overshadow the nations aspect.

i still can't believe they're planning to run this - it's got what, 10 confirmed team/driver entries now? and the first race is this weekend!

[kerrmanningjarv]

Well A1GP probably don't want to make twin teams obvious in case it leads to accusations of team orders or something... seeing as it's supposed to be every nation for itself, I could see how people might think "hey, why are Ireland and Netherlands teaming up?".

[Adri_tifosi]

Originally Posted by bella

nelson panciatici has also been confirmed as driving the olympique lyonnais car which is being run by epsilon.

I think it´s important to say it´s Epsilon Sport and not Epsilon Euskadi.

[Roninho]

Originally Posted by bella

i still can't believe they're planning to run this - it's got what, 10 confirmed team/driver entries now? and the first race is this weekend!

A serie like this needs a manufacturer willing to fund it or serious tv-exposure so that they could actually attract sponsorship. If you don't have these then don't bother trying unless you are willing to lose money big time.

[bella]

Originally Posted by Adri_tifosi

I think it´s important to say it´s Epsilon Sport and not Epsilon Euskadi.

thanks for the correction - the same team that are running stephane richelmi in bf3 in that case.

apparently they're testing the cars from today (or at least today)? at least they're getting some decent time with the cars. i can't imagine that's cheap though... everything they do with this series seems strange, there seems to be an invisible pot of money somewhere and it's not like there are many of those around at the moment..!

[kerrmanningjarv]

Especially as the clubs apparently put no money in whatsoever - so the money must come from pay drivers in most cases...

[racecontrol]

but many are not paying drivers... or at least not full-paying drivers...

[bella]

i can't see where the money would come from to do gp2 and superleague, for example. that's just ridiculous. especially considering they don't get any car space for their sponsors.

odd, isn't it...

[ford prefect]

On a matter of interest I see that Donington tickets are not for sale whereas other events are.

Also there is a rumour that Donington has had its track license revoked (see other threads on this forum)

[BOSSman]

the updated entry list:
Sporting Clube de Portugal - Zakspeed - Pedro Petiz
AC Milan - Azerti - Giorgio Pantano
AS Roma - Azerti - Jonathan Kennard
PSV Eindhoven- Azerti - Dominick Muermans
Flamengo - Delta / ADR - Enrique Bernoldi
FC Basel - GU Racing - Max Wissel
Glasgow Rangers - Alan Docking Racing - John Martin
Tottenham Hotspur - Alan Docking Racing - Craig Dolby
Corinthians - Alan Docking Racing - Antonio Pizzonia
FC Porto - Hitech - Tristan Gommendy
Liverpool FC - Hitech - Adrián Vallés
FC Midtylland - Hitech - Kasper Andersen
Olympique Lyonnais - Epsilon - Nelson Panciatici

still no drivers confirmed:
Galatasaray Istanbul - Ultimate - ???
Al-Ain FC - Ultimate - ???
Olympiacos - GU Racing - ???
Anderlecht - Zakspeed - ???
Atlético Madrid - Alan Docking Racing - ???

Christian

[Go_For_Pole]

Originally Posted by racecontrol

but many are not paying drivers... or at least not full-paying drivers...

For what is worth, GU asked Stamatis Katsimis 120,000 Euros for the year. Stamatis didn't manage to get the budget together (not helped by the fact that up until now there is no local tv contract) and therefore he will not return to the series. In fact, I am pretty much sure that no other Greek driver will bother.

[runshaw]

120,000 Euros? That is actually remarkably cheap to race in a series with top class drivers and hugely powerful cars! I don't get that...that is the sort of budget you need to do just a national Formula Renault series.

[Go_For_Pole]

I don't disagree with you but the point is that this price implies that the drive was to be partly paid by organisers. And the funnier part, today Rigon is confirmed as Olympiacos driver which implies that organisers think it makes more sense for them to pay even a bit more and get a good international driver than a local driver in this car.

Which is where their logic fails because when Anderssen was driving the Olympiacos car last year, tv ratings were dropping all the time and only when Katsimis took over they recovered and actually peaked at F1-levels. This however scared tv stations away and now they have no contract. And believe me for sure they will not get one now even if Rigon is a much better driver, because at the end of the day the name Rigon to Greek fans means nothing.

[duke_toaster]

SF's TV partner in the UK, Setanta Sports has gone bust. Let's hope the webstream is working.

[eveningladies]

Originally Posted by duke_toaster

SF's TV partner in the UK, Setanta Sports has gone bust. Let's hope the webstream is working.

I'll be there so can give you stilted updates if you like - will probably be better

[Roninho]

This is what Mikke Van Hool of Astromega said about cost of racing Superleague (article is from june 2008).

Costs for the season were between 700.000 and 750.000 euro, without the costs of buying the car. The article however mentions that the Superleague organisation decided to take care of the costs of the engine-lease, the pi-system-lease as well as the decoration of the pit-boxes, lowering the costs for the season to +- 300.000-400.000 euro.