Do you remember A1 GP, what did you think of it?

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JuliusSeizure

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I was just thinking about it the other day, these days it is pretty much forgotten.

The idea of it and a World Cup of Motorsport was pretty good but the execution poor and that's what led to it's demise.

SA had a team, Tokyo Sexwale was the owner. IIRC, the drivers were Stephen Simpson, Thomas Schektar, Alan Van Der Merwe and Adrian Zaugg. Zaugg was the most competitive out of them and even raced in GP2 for some time though he never came close to making it to F1. They also used Durban as a street circuit.

Last I heard of Van Der Merwe, he was driving the safety car in F1. Since been fired due to anti-vaccination stances.

This series was also the reason SABC stopped showing F1 as they wanted people to support the SA A1 team.
 
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I went to the Durban race, quite enjoyed it. Even with ear plugs, had a banging headache afterwards
 
Goosfrabba said:
I went to the Durban race, quite enjoyed it. Even with ear plugs, had a banging headache afterwards
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Yeah I also went, think we got bum tickets, would just see the cars for a few seconds every minute or 2.

Also recall it being super loud.
 
pinball wizard said:
Absolute garbage. If F1 is the pinnacle of open wheel motorsport, this was the exact opposite.
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Well, considering Jos Verstappen and Narain Karthikeyan were winning races, I have doubts about the quality. They were hardly competitive in F1. Then again, every single guy who gets to F1 is a brilliant driver compared to the average person so maybe my judgement is also a bit unfair.

Even Adrian Zaugg from Team South Africa won a few races IIRC. Zaugg was much better than Van Der Merwe and Simpson (the other SA drivers) but he struggled in GP2.

With that said, I liked the concept of A1 and having countries race against each other. Perhaps it could have existed with F1 as a feeder races and also a platform for old drivers to go after F1 guys like Ricciardo, Jenson Button etc would have made it cool.
 
I think A1 also helped a few guys, for one Hulkenberg did get a lot of exposure from it and I recall Ricciardo also being involved in it. Maybe some others as well.
 
Liked the concept and was interested to see how the series changed with the Ferrari involvement. There’s a rumour of it returning next year.
 
Quite enjoyed it. Would do Friday practices with my son, full access and just enjoyed the experience. The noise blew my mind, not only how loud it was, but how much potentially louder the F1 cars at the time would likely be.

Got heavy duty, industrial ear plugs though, those things were more mindblowing the noise lolz at how effective they were.
 
Jet-Fighter7700 said:
our own version, like A1 was for F1.
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can't help but think A1 just wasn't viable long term

it's a novel idea to have a racing championship "of nations", but at the end of the day there's more lucrative opportunities for talented drivers out there, F2, F3, Formula E and of course F1

does the world need another international single seater championship?
 
Jet-Fighter7700 said:
we did have our own version of Nascar (Sascar) that never caught on, so maybe your right there.
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SA has some talented drivers but our companies really lack the knowledge and expertise to run a successful racing series. We'd need international hands and I don't think they will be keen on something in SA anytime soon.

Our big businessmen also do not seem to be as keen as the likes of Lawrence Stroll etc when it comes to throwing money into the sport.
 
Jet-Fighter7700 said:
we did have our own version of Nascar (Sascar) that never caught on, so maybe your right there.
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SASCAR was doomed before it even took off. We had one proper oval at the time (which if I recall, they never even raced on) and then a few races at the Gosforth short track, meaning SASCAR ran most of their races on normal tracks when we already had the long-established Modified Saloon car championship running big V8s on normal tracks. I think by the end both series were running together, the SASCARs in their own class behind the faster Modifieds.

I went to school with the Auby brothers who got into it, but they eventually transitioned to full-blown Modifieds when SASCAR died.
 
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