Former F1 racer Robert Doornbos, has been appointed to drive for Scuderia Playteam’s AC Milan team in the new Superleague Formula. The Dutch racer will be in charge of the Scuderia Playteam’s V12, 750-horsepower car that will feature the red and black colors of the prestigious AC Milan club and the car will make its race debut at the start of the season in August at Donington.
“I am very pleased to have reached an agreement with Scuderia Playteam and to take on this important responsibility of driving for the team at the official tests in Barcelona and Montmelo in July,” Robert said.
“For me it is really exciting since I’ve always been a huge AC Milan fan. My aunt Jeanine actually used to be the physiotherapist of the extraordinary famous successful trio of Dutch players Marco van Basten, Frank Rijkaard and Ruud Gullit.
At school I could brag and proudly show all the latest club stickers of the club to my friends. Now they have left or retired, but current Dutch Champion Clarence Seedorf who is currently at the club is one of my best friends. I also drove in F1 for Minardi and I have maintained good contacts with Giancarlo Minardi whose son now manages Scuderia
Playteam. It’s definitely a small world and my first chief engineer in racing was Gabriele Tredozi, so I speak fluent Italian also!”
“We’re very pleased to have signed Robert Doornbos. It is precisely because of Doornbos’ extensive motor racing experience, and his obvious adaptability to widely differing types of machinery, that we felt he could be a real asset to us in this new adventure with AC Milan,” Scuderia Playteam Team owner and founder, Giambattista Giannoccaro commented.
In the Superleague Formula each football club will fight it out for 1 million Euros prize money at each of the six championship rounds. Each round will feature two races – one with a completely reverse grid.
My two shillings: What the hell are these people thinking?
They make the claim and believe apparently, “that football and motor racing can combine to deliver something spectacular,” that Superleague Formula “is about feeling the pride and the passion” while other formula’s “are dominated by technology.”
Which raises the overt and obvious question; If they are so adverse to advanced technology why complicate matters with a brand new formula that uses a Menard Competition Technologies 750-horsepower, V-12 power plant?
I don’t see it from a marketing standpoint either.
A1GP has seen reasonable success with the one-car-for-all formula and based on nationalism inherent in having the cars the stars so to speak. With each car flying the flag of the home country, and each team with a driver of the same country they can count on a certain amount of pride taking root and the added support it brings from those not normally attracted to motorsport.
I fail to see that happening in Superleague Formula.
Taking AC Milan for an example, the league and the racing team will market to AC Milan football fans obviously, but how many fans of the other 19 Serie A football clubs in Italy can they count on for support?
They can pickup some, those already motorsports fans will cross over and support the team. But how many of the football team’s bitter rivals like S.S. Lazio or A.S Roma will root for, and more importantly, attend a race to support A.C Milan?
I’m thinking not enough to take this league much further than the first season without some serious Euros tossed under the redline to keep it afloat.
My bottomline is, if it works fine, the more opportunities for drivers to strut their talent the better chance they have to move into GP2 and F1.
If it doesn’t, oh well, its not my cash pounded down a rat hole.
As an aside to F1 Wolf, if you dislike A1GP’s tagline of World Cup of Motorsport, what are you thoughts on the SuperLeague Formula’s?
SuperLeague Formula - “The Beautiful Race.”
Technorati Tags: Robert Doornbos, AC Milan, F1, SuperLeague Formula, F1 Rage!, Motorsports
Tags: AC Milan, F1, F1 Rage, Motorsports, Robert Doornbos, SuperLeague Formula
F1Wolf wrote,
OK:
- the cars are not too ugly
- they do not call themselves World Cup of anything
and that is where the positives end …
I am not really sure what is this thing supposed to achieve. If some football teams want to promote themselves among racing fans, why they do not simply buy some of the GP2 teams, paint the cars in their colours and enter a real competition … AC Milan GP2 Racing Team would not sound too bad and the blackred livery may look great
Link | May 23rd, 2008 at 7:22 am
Rage-in-Chief wrote,
I agree Wolf, the whole thing smacks of a dream thought up by some marketing “genius” with no connection to either football or racing.
I vaguely remember someone else trying the same thing and I consistently fail to remember what it was called, but one thing I do remember was it turned out to be an utter failure.
Link | May 23rd, 2008 at 8:46 am
peterg wrote,
Premier 1, I think was the name of the first failed shot at this idea.
Link | June 7th, 2008 at 4:11 pm
Andy wrote,
I knew ol’ Doorknobs was too good a driver to remain unemployed for long… but this? Sounds like a good fit for his background, but that’s about all that can be said for it.
Link | July 5th, 2008 at 6:09 am