The football club that will move into the Beijing Olympic stadium following the 2008 Olympic Games is the latest team to join the new football-themed motor racing championship, Superleague Formula. Beijing Guoan Football Club has joined the expanding Superleague Formula grid — becoming the Championship’s first Asian club.
Superleague Formula now includes clubs from Europe, the Middle-East, South America and Asia — becoming a truly global competition. The Chinese squad joins AC Milan, PSV Eindhoven, FC Porto, Olympiacos, Borussia Dortmund, RSC Anderlecht, FC Basel, Flamengo, Galatasaray, Sevilla, Corinthians, Rangers and Al Ain on the Superleague Formula grid.
Founded in 1992, Beijing Guoan is the only Chinese league club based in the Olympic city. Their existing home is the Beijing Fengtai Stadium. The club finished runner-up in the Chinese league in 1995 and 2007, but has earned three Chinese FA Cup crowns in 1996, 1997, 2003
“Superleague Formula is a good platform for us to communicate with all the top teams in the world and play together with them,” said Li Xiaoming, the General Manager of Guoan FC.
The Beijing Guoan Superleague Formula entry will be run by experienced German race team, Zakspeed. The Peter Zakowski run organisation will also run the Borussia Dortmund Superleague Formula entry. An ex-Formula 1-entrant, Zakspeed has run factory programmes for Ford, BMW, Mercedes, Opel, Porsche and Dodge in a wide range of motorsport competition.
“As a German team, we were thrilled at the chance to run the Borussia Dortmund car, but we are equally as excited about Beijing Guoan,” said Zakspeed team owner, Peter Zakowski.
“China is an enormous market and the world’s most populous country. From a marketing and sponsorship perspective, the opportunities are truly outstanding.
“The country is beginning to embrace motorsport and they now host Formula 1 and MotoGP events. We are delighted to be representing the Beijing Guoan club and will look forward doing out utmost to put their green and gold colours on the podium.”
The inaugural Superleague Formula Championship will kick off at Donington Park in the UK — recently announced as the new home for the British Formula 1 Grand Prix from 2010. The first Superleague Formula round will be staged on August 30/31 followed by the Nurburgring in Germany on September 20/21; Zolder (Belgium) October 4/5; Estoril (Portugal) October 18/19; Vallelunga (Italy) November 1/2 and Jerez (Spain) on November 22/23. All Superleague Formula teams will fight it out for 1 million euro prize money at each championship round.
“Our first race is less than two months away and we are delighted to start announcing our final teams for the championship,” Superleague Formula President and CEO, Alex Andreu said. “We are completing contracts with the final clubs and are looking forward to seeing all the cars on the grid for our group test in Barcelona from July 29 to 31.
“Football is biggest game in the world and we are thrilled to add another club, another country and another continent in welcoming Beijing Guoan.
“China has a population of more than 1.3 billion and the popularity of football is enormous. We have no doubt the Beijing Guoan is going to be one of the most wildly popular in the Superleague Formula championship.”
Cross Posted @ Asian Motor Sports
Technorati Tags: SuperLeague Formula, China, Beijing China, Beijing Guoan
Tags: Beijing China, Beijing Guoan, China, SuperLeague Formula
peterg wrote,
Hmmm, I had no idea that Bejing had a team in one of the European leagues. LOL
Hey the more the merrier because I STILL don’t get this concept.
Link | July 30th, 2008 at 10:33 am
Rage-in-Chief wrote,
I just got a press release from SL saying the (Giancarlo) Fisichella Motor Sport International will be teaming up anmd running the AS Roma entry.
Link | July 30th, 2008 at 10:37 pm
peterg wrote,
If memory serves, FMS is the old Coloni team with Fisi’s name on it. This is a move that makes sense for commercial reasons.
If you have all that infrastructure in GP2 you might as well make a buck by running one of these teams for a football club.It is the same deal in A1GP, all of those teams are run by European F3000/GP2 type squads DAMS, Super Nova etc.
Link | July 31st, 2008 at 5:16 am
Rage-in-Chief wrote,
I agree ion your A1GP point, as far as I can tell the US A1 team has been hurt by not having those connections.
It’s the only reason I can think of that explains why a team that runs the same equipment as the rest consistently sucks hind tit.
Link | July 31st, 2008 at 5:51 am
peterg wrote,
You got me thinking about this, so I looked up the USA A1GP team at wiki.
“The engineering side of the team was originally run by British squad David Price Racing, but is now run by fellow-Brits West Surrey Racing.”
DPR run a GP2 team & WSR is a serious F3 operation.If I recall, in the first season of A1, many critisised Team India for not having a Euro open wheel squad running the car, but I think they are the only team to go it alone.
Link | July 31st, 2008 at 10:59 am
Alianora La Canta wrote,
The Canadian A1GP entry is engineered by JVA, which is based quite near my house. So in a way that team is more local to me than the British entry. It can all get a bit confusing at times.
Link | August 2nd, 2008 at 6:26 pm
Superleague Formula: Sevilla Stars In The Rain To Claim Victory | Asian Motor Sports wrote,
[…] Bejing Joins SuperLeague Formula […]
Link | October 24th, 2008 at 10:43 pm