Dec's Blog - April '08
We recently got an email into the Setanta Sports F1 show asking us how A1GP compares with F1 and whether Adam Carroll will ever make it as a Grand Prix driver.
It's an interesting topic, not least because of Carroll's fantastic recent win for A1 Team Ireland in Mexico, a victory that was a real team effort and had been a long time coming.
From my own point of view the A1GP World Cup of Motorsport is really great motorsport, a strong concept that is starting to really establish itself some history and tradition and becoming a staple element of the world motorsport menu of race series.
But I don't think it should ever be compared to F1 and nor do I believe that the organisers of the series should consider going head to head with the FIA World Championship, a series with a tradition and status in a different stratosphere to A1.
If that sounds like a criticism of the newer series then I apologise because it very much isn't. They are two different beasts, F1 and A1 and just because the words 'Grand' and 'Prix' are used in association with each is not a good enough reason to compare them.
When the concept of A1 was first mooted several years ago by Sheikh Makhtoum Hasher Al Makhtoum I thought it was a fantastic idea to create a series for big powerful single seaters raced by national teams. The Olympics of Motorsport as the Sheikh liked to call it.
But to my mind the key strength of the A1 concept as promoted then was the notion that it would primarily take place in winter, when other major series were resting. A1 would have a clear run at the market and race fans would have an alternative to Paris-Dakar (when it's running) and ice racing from Chamonix.
Well A1 has established itself as a much watch racing series during the dark days of northern hemisphere winter but it has strayed a little from what I believe ought to be its core strengths.
A couple of clashes with F1 ought to be avoided and I suspect that the restructured A1GP organisation will be working hard to eliminate them.
Then they should turn their attention to the fact that most of the teams are run by European motorsport teams engaged in other championships, such as David Sears Super Nova organisation which runs several teams.
Ireland has always been an exception, Mark Gallagher and Mark Kershaw having created an Irish team from scratch and then working hard to maintain and enhance a strong Irish element in the personnel.
Not all teams are like that, though, and I feel some fans are being hoodwinked by contracted engineering firms representing nations to which they have often no connection.
I remember going to the race in Durban in season one and being somewhat non plussed by the sight and sound of a whole load of English accents wandering around in those extraordinarily striking US team overalls.
Surely the US can come up with its own team?
As for Adam Carroll's chances in F1, well they don't look great now. Rightly or wrongly the pace of F1 is frenetic and there is a relatively short window of time for a driver to make his mark and break into the exclusive club.
In Adam's case, his career has always been hampered by a lack of finance and were it now for his prodigious talent and the unstinting support of Dubliner John Sweeney who has backed his career from Formula Ford he would not have made it this far.
Is Adam good enough for F1? Absolutely. His race winning performances in British F3 and then in GP2 showed that he has fantastic car control and an awe inspiring ability to create overtaking opportunities.
He was on the books at Honda a few years ago and tested several times for the team. However, the Milton Keynes team, for whatever reason, chose not to continue the association.
Sometimes the factors influencing F1 teams' talent programmes are tough to understand and the committees that sit often lose sight of the single most important requirement in picking a young driver: speed.
Marketing considerations and an obsession with discovering a ready made engineering automaton often cloud the judgement of the engineering boffins most of whom have never raced.
Anyway, as Mark Gallagher said in his impassioned post Mexico debrief, F1's loss is A1's gain. Adam is still only 25, mind, and a concerted effort from corporate Ireland to place him in an F1 team might still work.
If it doesn't happen then so be it. A1 is, in its right, a great place for a driver to ply his trade. Good luck to him and the Irish A1 team for the rest of the season.
By Declan Quigley
Setanta Sports F1 Presenter-Commentator
www.setanta.com
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