Mosley says A1 GP concept flawed

The self-proclaimed 'World Cup of Motorsport' sees countries racing against each other in equal machinery and local drivers representing their nations.

But despite the close racing, several of the A1 GP rounds so far have suffered from minimal crowd attendance.

Mosley reckons it's the lack of big names what's hurting the championship.

"In the end what they (the fans) like to watch is the big names," Mosley told reporters on Tuesday.

"It is a star system, and for me the big lesson there was Group C [sport prototypes] at the end of the 1980's. You had all those marques, Mercedes, Jaguar, Toyota, Peugeot and I think 5,000 people turned up at Silverstone which was less than a BTCC race.

"They were not interested in the big makes or the technology, what they wanted was to see Prost and Senna. That is the things the teams often forget, you could run some quite ordinary cars and still have the public."

And although Mosley believes the one-make series helps cut costs, the Briton claims the system is flawed in how some countries are unable to provide a top driver because of their lack of car racing heritage.

"Not really," said Mosley when asked if Formula One had learned anything from the A1 series. "You see it is a one-make series and if you run a one-make series then 90 percent of your problems have gone immediately because you can do whatever you like with the costs.

"The idea of the countries running against each other is a nice idea but inevitably ski racing, there are some countries that have got them and some countries that haven't, so it makes for strange racing.

"A1 GP in terms of a country versus country thing would only really work if they had the means to get the top drivers from each country, and they don't.

"I think in F1, we just couldn't make that work. This was the first year that the German national sporting authority didn't win the cup for the most points because they have in the past had pretty good German drivers and it would just make a mockery with Germany all the time."