THE END-TO-END THRILLER THAT DIED IN STOPPAGE TIME
The Superleague Formula championship had lost its way by the summer of 2011. It had been founded amid much optimism on the premise of connecting football with motorsport, shortly before the global financial crisis struck in 2008. And now it had begun a process of turning away from its USP, hoping to capitalise on A1GP’s collapse by welcoming nations onto the grid. But only two race weekends were staged that year, at Assen and Zolder, before the championship folded.
That was a bitter shame, because the series based around the formidable 750bhp Panoz-MCT was perhaps the closest thing we’ve had in the 21st century to an equivalent of the enormously popular Formula 5000 category (if we’re dismissing Australia’s S5000 series – ed), albeit without the chassis variation.
“It could be as loud as you want, it could be big and heavy, and we could get cars from America and build our own engine, it was just fantastic,” says technical director Steve Farrell, who had previously been the chief engineer at the Subaru World Rally Team. “Everything about it was great fun.”
“I would go as far as saying in 2008-09, it was one of the most enjoyable series I’ve ever done, it was that good,” agrees former Hitech Junior boss David Hayle, whose squad ran former GP2 racer Adrian Valles to the 2009 title with Liverpool.
By the time Farrell joined in 2007, it had already been decided that the series would use a chassis produced by Elan Motorsports Technologies in Georgia – designers Simon Marshall and Nick Alcock had also been responsible for the Panoz DP01 used in the final season of Champ Car in
