Competitor from the East

Sheikh Hasher al-Maktoum is ready to eclipse Formula 1

Exactly one month remains until the start of the fundamentally new A1 racing series, the organizers of which, not without good reason, hope that it will become a completely worthy competitor to the Formula 1 world championship. Official practice for the first stage of the 2005 A1 Grand Prix will take place on September 23 at the Brand Hutch circuit, 32 kilometers southeast of London. The next day, Saturday, qualifying will take place, and the race itself, as in Formula, will start on Sunday.

The idea of ​​the new series belongs to the influential and very rich sheikh from the United Arab Emirates Maktoum Hasher Maktoum al-Maktoum. The Maktoum family rules the emirate of Dubai and has enormous income from oil sales. Members of this clan have long been noted for their passion for elite sports. Thus, the Emirates airline, owned by the Maktoums, was a sponsor of the English football club Chelsea for several years. At the Athens Olympics, Ahmed Al Maktoum became the first UAE athlete to win a gold medal. He won the skeet shooting competition in the double trap event.

These are the three key components of Hasher Maktoum's idea. Firstly, A1 racing will fill the vacuum for Formula 1 fans in the autumn-spring period. Secondly, in this series, not private, but national teams will compete with each other. And thirdly, the stables are expected to be paid a bonus of $1 million for winning the stage. These conditions of the regulations, according to Hasher Maktoum, should arouse enormous interest in the A1 racing series in the world. In addition, many stages will be held in countries that are not in the modern Formula 1 calendar - Portugal, South Africa, Singapore, the UAE. A total of 12 stages are planned from September 25 to March 26.

According to al-Maktoum’s idea, in A1, new products in the field of modern technologies and achievements in design ideas should fade into the background, since pilots will compete in identical cars. The main thing in A1 is competition in the skill of pilots and the coherence of their engineers and mechanics, based on patriotism and pride in their nation. The organizers previously planned that teams from 25 countries would be allowed to participate in the series. So far there are applications from 21 teams. Europe is represented by Germany, Great Britain, France, Ireland, Portugal, Italy, Holland and Türkiye. There will be many Asian countries in A1, among them some that are quite exotic from the point of view of motorsport fans - Lebanon, Pakistan, Malaysia, India, Korea, China. The remaining participants are the USA, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, South Africa and New Zealand.

The cars, which look like formula cars, are equipped with an eight-cylinder V-engine with a capacity of 3400 cc. see The sports regulations of the series are still under development, and it is not yet clear how many points will be awarded depending on the place taken. Some teams have already made it clear which specific pilots they will bet on. The British attracted young people - Alex Lloyd and Robbie Kerr, who have experience in Formula 3000, were entrusted to defend the colors of the United Kingdom. Pakistan and the USA have finally been identified, attracting not very well-known but ambitious racers. The Mexicans have narrowed the field of applicants to ten people and are currently conducting a national selection.

Al-Maktoum has already held a gorgeous presentation of his brainchild in London with the participation of world football stars Portuguese Luis Figo and Brazilian Ronaldo. Contracts have been concluded to show the races, and the television audience is expected to be about 290 million people from 50 countries. The Middle East and North Africa region (50 million) will cover Al Jazeera Sport, South East. Asia, Australia and Oceania (total 180 million) - ESPN STAR Sports. The first racing test session took place in August at the British Silverstone circuit. 15 teams took part in it. The best time was shown by the car of the track's owners; Brazil was only slightly behind them.

Vladimir ILYIN