SEPTEMBER 19, 2005

A1 ready for take-off

With five days to go before the start of the A1 Grand Prix series at Brands Hatch, the final details of the entry list are still coming together with around 25 teams expected to be seen in action. It will be interesting to see who emerges ahead as the times are expected to be close but there is much expected from the British team, which is being run by Arden International. Rival GP2 team ART is running the Brazilian entry for Ronaldo and Emerson Fittipaldi while DAMS is going to have a huge job ahead, running cars for France, Mexico, Switzerland and Russia. Super Nova Racing is going to have cars for Germany and Pakistan while Carlin Motorsport will also be busy with entries for Portugal and the Lebanon. Dave Price Racing is expected to field the American team, Astromega will run China, Alan Docking Australia and West Surrey Racing will oversee the New Zealand entry. Vincenzo Sospiri is also expected to be in on the act with the Indonesian team and Jan Lammers with the Dutch effort. We hear also that there are likely to be late entries from Coloni (Italy) and Rosberg (Scandinavia). It is not entirely clear who is running some of the other operations.

All things considered, however, it looks like the series is going to kick off healthily and will feature a strong field of drivers, the best of which have made their names in F1 and GP2. The drivers are likely to change from race to race in some of the teams as the goal is to win the series for one's country and not for personal glory.