02/04/2007
NEWS STORY
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As GP Masters and A1 GP appear to flounder, there is talk of yet another motor racing series - indeed a series which has a familiar ring to it.
According to the press release, a new international competition launched today (Tuesday) at AC Milan's San Siro Stadium will brings together two of the world's most exciting and popular sports: football and motor racing.
The first two Superleague Formula cars will be unveiled in AC Milan and PSV Eindhoven team livery at San Siro later today when both teams will play Champions League Quarter Final matches at their home grounds (against Bayern Munich and Liverpool respectively).
Superleague Formula is a motorsport championship in which identical high performance single-seater cars will race under the colours of leading football clubs from all over the world.
The series has already gained the official approval of the FIA, and the first race is scheduled for the summer of 2008.
According to the organizers, market research based on ten focus groups of season ticket holders in five European countries showed overwhelming enthusiasm for the new championship, which will allow the world's top football clubs to extend their rivalry into an entirely new arena. Twenty teams representing clubs from fifteen countries - including Italy's AC Milan and the champion clubs of the Netherlands, Portugal and Greece: PSV Eindhoven, FC Porto and Olympiacos - will compete in the inaugural 2008 season which will feature six races at high-profile tracks within Europe.
Series organisers are now in the process of negotiating with a number of teams of similar calibre in the UK, as well as FC Barcelona, Valencia and Real Madrid, (Spain), Inter Milan (Italy), Olympique Lyonnais and Olympique de Marseille (France), Borussia Dortmund and FC Schalke 04 (Germany), Basel (Switzerland), Galatasaray (Turkey), Anderlecht (Belgium), Goteborg (Sweden), Moscow Lokomotiv (Russia), Boca Juniors (Argentina), Flamingo (Brazil) and Club America (Mexico), Shanghai Shenua (China), Samsung Bluewings (Korea) and a small number of clubs in the USA.
Following the first season they plan to increase both the number of races and their geographic spread.
The core of the new series, also revealed for the first time today, is an Elan/Panoz single-seater built by Élan Motorsport Technologies in the United States. It will be powered by a 750bhp 4.2-litre V12 engine designed by US-owned Menard Competition Technologies (MCT) in Leafield, England.
There will be two Superleague Formula races per weekend, one race with reverse grids, offering a total purse of 1 million Euros. The aim is to provide world class motorsport entertainment at competitive ticket prices and to expand the audience by appealing to families, young people and women with a range of other activities and attractions at the circuit.
Superleague Formula is spearheaded by Spanish sports marketing specialist Alex Andreu, whose track record includes developing innovative and sophisticated media and communications programmes for the 1992 Olympic Games, World Skiing Championships, FINA and FIFA, and British born Robin Webb, a former financial executive who has many years of hands-on motorsport experience. From its inception, the business has worked in partnership with the Havas/Media Planning Group, one of the world’s largest global advertising and communications groups; international global brand consultancy Imagination, and global advertising agency TBWA (part of Omnicom Group).
Funded by a group of private investors from a variety of sectors (including the worlds of media, entertainment and finance) who have underwritten the championship’s first season, Superleague Formula projects a high rate of return on investment over its first five years on the basis of an innovative business model that combines the interests of race teams, football clubs, circuits and TV broadcasters and sponsors. Income will be derived from event and car sponsorship, licensing, hospitality, TV rights and circuit fees and various promotional activities, while revenues will be shared between Superleague Formula, the
race teams and football clubs.
Readers may remember a similar idea (Premier1 Grand Prix) being mooted a couple of years back, with a number of European footballs clubs - including Anderlecht, Leeds United, Benfica, Chelsea, Valencia and Feyenoord signing up. Darren Manning was pictured with the Leeds car, while Romford (nearest club West Ham) born Johnny Herbert expressed interest in driving for Chelsea. The Essex boy claiming at the time: "I've been a Chelsea fan all my life and it's no secret that I would love to be considered for the drive." Ugh!
The one-make series - Reynard was originally scheduled to be the constructor but went bankrupt - was the brainchild of entrepreneur and property millionaire, Colin Sullivan, was to feature cars fitted with a 6-speed pneumatic semi-automatic paddle-operated sequential gearbox and a 4-litre V10 engine giving in excess of 750 brake horsepower. The total weight of the car and driver was to have been approximately 650kg.
Premier1 Grand Prix, which like Superleague, claimed to have FIA approval, first broke cover in 2000, but by 2003 the dream was dead, the 'series' having failed to stage a race. There was further talk of the series in 2004, but nothing developed.
And no, this is not a late April Fool spoof!
Top picture shows basic Superleague car, below is AC Mila's entry, featuring Carlo Bonomi (JAS Motorsport), Adriano Galliani (AC Milan Managing Director and Vice President), Giorgio Schon (JAS Motorsport) and Superleague Formula CEO Alex Andreu.
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