Highlights
Series
Explore
Last Sunday at Sepang, A1 Team Switzerland's Neel Jani leant forward to receive the winner's gold medal after taking the honours in the sprint race. In quick succession, Loic Duval and Earl Bamber received silver and bronze-ware respectively.
With that, in far away Malaysia, the first country to subscribe to Bernie Ecclestone's vision of going East (can it really be ten years since Formula One first left its traditional heartland?), the impact of awarding medallions rather than points - as recently propagated by Ecclestone - became vividly clear.
Earl Bamber, Neel Jani, and Loic Duval with their medals at the A1GP round in Sepang © XPB |
Much as Formula One scorns the self-styled 'World Cup of Motorsport', there is no denying the former is increasingly embracing concepts introduced by the upstart formula. Consider: A1GP ran on control tyres two years before F1 mandated the same, it runs to a single chassis/engine configuration (supplied by Ferrari, undeniably F1's most evocative name) and uses a single fuel supplier.
Then, A1GP broadcasts in Hi-Def television - to be implemented by F1 next year - while its two-race format has of late been tabled for discussion by FOTA. Dig into its finances and it becomes apparent that a venture capital company took shares in A1GP some time before CVC Partners even sniffed about F1, and operates on a partner basis much like the Olympics - which F1 is said to adopt in the near future.
