Interview: Jonathan Summerton - America's Next Great Formula 1 Hope

The past decade has been frustratingly difficult for the American Formula 1 fan. A much-hyped event at the storied Indianapolis Motor Speedway dropped off the schedule after 2005's Michelin tire debacle, which saw only the six Bridgestone-shod competitors contest the race. American driver search winner Scott Speed flamed out with Scuderia Toro Rosso and now races stock cars.

Last year saw no North American races on the grid at all, and with two American-based teams unsuccessful in bids to join the sport, a period that started off with so much promise has led to a bleak present for the sport stateside.

Jonathan Summerton is aiming to change all that.

The 22-year-old Kissimmee, Florida native has been making quite a name for himself by winning races and contending for championships across the globe. Summerton took America's lone win in the national team-oriented A1 Grand Prix championship, winning the spring 2008 feature race at Shanghai.

He scored four wins in last year's Atlantic Championship, tying season champion John Edwards in points (Edwards took the tiebreaker with one more second-place), and posted strong finishes while moonlighting with Andersen Racing in the Firestone Indy Lights Series. These performances attracted the attention of both potential American-based F1 entrants, and he was working closely with the Cypher Group on an F1 program for next year.

Off track, Summerton connects with his fans better than most drivers. He frequents Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube, giving his fans an inside look into the life of a professional race car driver.

While visiting Louisiana State University, Summerton took time out of his busy schedule to answer some questions for us.

---

Let’s start with the basics. How did you first get into racing? When did you decide that you wanted to do it professionally?

JS: I started racing in Go Karts when I was 12 and well basically from day one I was set on being a World Champion and making a career out of it. I love racing it's my passion and life.

You've had experience racing in Formula BMW, Formula 3, and A1GP, traveling across the globe to do so. How did racing (and winning) in those three series shape you as a driver? Do the drivers, teams, and fans over in Europe treat racing differently than they do here in the States?

JS: Well of course over there, there are a lot more people who know and live for racing but the excitement in America is very similar. Driving all over the world in those series was amazing and was an experience of a lifetime. It has helped me learn to travel and depend on myself more and keep myself motivated while on the road. It also has helped me build a family with my teams. It is great and I really enjoy bringing the team together and having a family on the road.

Last year was one of the best of your career, with some strong Indy Lights finishes and almost winning the Atlantic title. Do you attribute last year's success to anything in particular? Looking back on it, does any one race in particular stand out?

JS: Well for me everything was great. I am determined to be the best and win in whatever I do. It was also great last year having so many people behind me supporting me and well of course just having my fans behind me and friends and family has always helped and motivated me more and more everyday. Without them I wouldn't be the person I am today. It was a great season and I really enjoyed it.

Unfortunately we haven't seen too much of you this year. What have you been doing to pass the time?

JS: Haha well been keeping busy training hard and working hard on finding sponsors. I have had a lot of deals come and go that many haven't heard of but as many know was working on a deal with Cypher Group for F1 and well we were almost there but decided we wanted to have everything ready to go when we do it. I know they will be back and well they are a great group of people and was great working with them. Now I am concentrating on finding funding for next year.

Have you had any luck on the sponsorship front? A lot of teams have been taking on pay drivers in recent years to pay the bills. Do you see that trend continuing in the near future, or do you think things are primed for a turn around?

JS: Well I think this is where racing needs to change up a little cause a few years ago teams were wanting the best drivers and had sponsors behind them now it seems they are struggling just like the drivers and well of course money is key now. I am working feverishly to find sponsors and it's just part of the job :)

You’ve worked with a number of the top teams in Atlantic and Indy Lights over the past couple of years, as well as some top teams in your time in Europe. Did you have a favorite team to work with, or a team that you felt you worked best with?

JS: Well all of them have been great. I would never say there was a best as they all had different qualities but I will say working with A1GP Team USA was a fun and exciting experience every time traveling the world together with them.

You’re also one of only a handful of drivers to have run in both the current Dallara Indy Lights chassis and the Swift Atlantic car. Was one of those cars easier to drive than the other? More fun to drive? More reliable?

JS: I would have to say they were both really fun. The Swift could have done with more power but they both had their own aspects that were fun. I must say I haven't found a car I didn't enjoy driving. They are all racecars and what can I say driving is fun!

Have you been keeping up with this year’s Formula 1 and IndyCar seasons? What do you think about the way things have been going this year?

JS:Yeah of course. Racing is what I live, breathe, and eat! Things are very exciting in both series. I gotta say the new Indy Car is looking great and what Randy is doing there is great. I hope sponsors come on board there and help the series become bigger again. F1 now that is just awesome to have 5 drivers as close as they are fighting for the title. Very exciting!

An American-based Formula 1 team, USF1, was supposed to join the grid this year, with no luck. Another entry (Cypher) wasn’t granted entry for 2011. Now there are rumblings that the new track in Austin is going to be behind schedule, and that traffic will be outrageous. Why do you think Formula 1 is having such a hard time stabilizing itself in the United States? As a driver with F1 aspirations, do you see this as a hindrance to your goals, or does it only motivate you more to make it to that level?

JS: Well with Cypher actually they withdrew their entry as we were wanted to have everything ready and well we didn't so to be fair to the others and FIA we withdrew. As for F1 it is a very hard gig to get into. High in cost and lots of work to do so. Of course not having any major things of F1 happening for America in teams, tracks, and drivers it is very hard to break in but it can be done and hopefully I will do it!

As far as drivers go, you have a pretty strong online presence - you use Twitter and YouTube a lot, and interact with your fans as much as possible. What's your favorite part of using social media as a driver? Do you think other drivers will come to embrace it as you do in the near future?

JS: Interacting with fans is fun and I love doing it. You get to hear outside stories, hear about their opinions and what they want to see and well of course build up a support group. I can't express enough how I enjoy bringing fans into my shoes and letting them tell me what they want to see cause I know there's lots of cool and interesting things in racing. I can't say it enough though I am always trying to get new fans and followers on Facebook, youtube, and twitter as I love filling people in on what they want to know about the sport and my life.

What's the best piece of advice a fellow competitor ever gave you about racing? And what advice would you offer young drivers looking to follow in your footsteps?

JS: Stay focused and never let any door close. Always stay grounded and remember where you came from! Never miss an opportunity! Go out there and do your best interact with everyone and enjoy every minute. You have to believe in yourself first before others will!

Anything else you'd like to tell your fans and readers?

JS: Thank you for all their support and feel free to chat to me on Facebook or twitter and send me any suggestions or things they would like to hear about or know more about for my future videos on youtube! My fans mean the world to me and are the ones who have believed in me and kept me pushing on towards my dreams and I want to say a big THANK YOU to them and everyone for their support.

Finally, what do you think the future holds for you? And what do you think the future holds for American open-wheel racing in general?

JS: Can't really say all I know is a world championship I am sure ;) As for American open wheel racing I am sure things will become strong again we all just have to come together.

---

We'd like to say a big THANK YOU to JS for taking the time to talk to us. You can check out his personal website at http://www.formulajon.com, his Twitter account at @JSummerton, and his YouTube channel jsummertonusa.

For the Fans: New Site Revolutionizes Online Motorsports Viewing

For the American open-wheel racing fan, many a weekend is spent searching for a way to get a fix on open-wheel competition. Unlike stock cars, which run just about every weekend from February to November, open-wheel series usually run schedules of 20 or fewer races. The IZOD IndyCar Series only has 17 events, as does Formula 1, and the issue of time zones makes following the latter difficult as it holds its Asian rounds.

However, a new motorsports website built for the hardcore fan has come along to solve some of these problems for the American open-wheel fan. RaceFansTV.com, in its infancy, has already secured the rights to rebroadcast past events of some of the top open-wheel series in the world, including British and European Formula 3, the Star Mazda Championship, the Atlantic Championship, and classic open-wheel events, including Indianapolis 500s from the 1960s. It also broadcasts profiles of some of the top drivers in racing history, under the title of "Golden Age Documentaries."

The site was founded as a way to bring historic motorsports videos together in one place. It boasts dozens of new videos per week, fresh and frequently updated news from around the world, as well as an already vibrant online community with contests, polls, and message boards. It even has a section allowing fans to post their own reports, often times including striking fan-shot photography of some of the biggest events in the world. With only weeks online, the site is still primed to grow exponentially.

Among the names that older racing fans might recognize in classic open-wheel races are A.J. Foyt, Parnelli Jones, Eddie Sachs, and Rodger Ward. More greats are profiled in Golden Age Documentaries, including former Formula 1 stars Jack Brabham, Jim Clark, Juan Fangio, Jackie Stewart, and John Surtees. Budding racing historians can also check out the site's extensive wiki, containing information on just about any driver imaginable.

But don't let the "historic" tag fool you - many of the junior open-wheel series events that the site currently carries come from the past two years. Among the young talent that Race Fans TV users can watch are Formula 1 test pilots Valtteri Bottas, Brendon Hartley, and Daniel Ricciardo, Firestone Indy Lights drivers Philip Major, Jonathan Summerton, and Jean Karl Vernay, and IZOD IndyCar Series rookie Simona de Silvestro. Many more drivers whose exploits can currently be seen on the site will make names for themselves in those three series in the future. In fact, current IZOD IndyCar Series drivers Ryan Briscoe, Mike Conway, and Takuma Sato all made names for themselves by winning the championships in the branches of Formula 3 that Race Fans TV carries, making it a prime place to seek out the imported open-wheel talent of the future.

Of course, Race Fans TV is not exclusively an open-wheel site. It also boasts solid video libraries of sports car, touring car, rally, stock car, and motorcycle racing, giving it something for just about everybody. In fact, eight channels highlighting different niches within motorsports are running at all times, with five more niche channels and two on demand channels also established.

The site is free to experience, and free to join, but a $5 monthly subscription also opens up increases in video quality, decreases in advertisement, and the ability to watch a handful of videos on demand each month. Subscribers can also watch videos on demand any time within 24 hours of their most recent airing for free.

You can check out Race Fans TV's open wheel channel here, or the home page here.

IndyCar Season Preview: de Ferran Luczo Dragon Racing

Raphael Matos won the 2009 IZOD IndyCar Series rookie of the year award, following his 2008 Firestone Indy Lights and 2007 Atlantic Championship titles, in a Luczo Dragon Racing car last year. The season was a modest success for both, as Matos kept his trophy streak alive and Luczo Dragon proved reasonably competitive in their first full-time IndyCar season. Matos even had a shot at winning the Indianapolis 500 before a crash in turn one ended his day.

Despite a hard crash at St. Petersburg (that launched a spectator out of a porta-john outside of the retaining wall) and three other DNFs in his first seven races, Matos completed all of the last ten races on the schedule in 2009, and scored eight top-10s on the year. His best finish was a sixth place run at Milwaukee. While he did not approach his 2008 Indy Lights success, he still managed to establish himself as a consistent driver who could bring the car home in one piece.

This season, however, more will be expected out of Matos and the team. Luczo Dragon Racing merged with former sports car team de Ferran Motorsports, and former Indianapolis 500 winner and two-time CART champion Gil de Ferran will now be Matos' driver coach. De Ferran, who nearly won the American Le Mans Series championship last year as an owner/driver, will attempt to move his Brazilian countryman up the ranks.

The team also has a better sponsorship package this year, with Hewlett-Packard, McAfee, and Bell Micro all signed on. As part of the HP deal, Davey Hamilton (who has carried their sponsorship for a few years now) will run a limited schedule for the team in a second car. That will allow the team to gain even more information at Indianapolis, Texas, and another oval to be announced, information that will hopefully make Matos' car even faster at those tracks. Hamilton will also attempt to complete a race at Texas for the first time since a career-threatening crash in 2001 that required 21 operations to reconstruct his feet. (Coincidentally, Hamilton's car will carry No. 21 this year.)

Anything short of a top 10 in points for Matos and DFLDR this year will be a disappointment, especially considering that all parties involved have seen some success in the past few years. Matos should score his first top five finish this season, at the very least, and score more top-10s, although a win might require a little luck.

2010 Atlantic Championship Cancelled

Sad days endure in American open wheel racing, as the long-standing Atlantic Championship is no more.

Series owner Ben Johnston and team owners made the decision yesterday to cancel this year's season, according to Auto123.com. The season was set to open in just over two weeks at Sebring, but only one driver and team combination had been announced, although a news release on the series' official website from last week suggested that 10 teams were in place.

As with many recent failings in the motorsports world, this cancellation was driven by economic factors, particularly the loss of many sponsorship programs. The series lists primary sponsorship deals with Cooper Tires and Mazda on its website, but only three contingency sponsors. Many of the teams that competed last year only had minor sponsorship deals.

To make matters worse, last year's championship team, Newman Wachs Racing, left the series, taking champion driver John Edwards with it to sports car racing. Second-place Jonathan Summerton sits on the sidelines looking for a ride in any major professional series.

Johnston has, however, laid out rough plans for a Winter Series towards the end of the year, if financially viable for the organization and its team owners. In a best case scenario, the Winter Series would lead to a relaunched championship in 2011.

The series was first established in 1974, and has always been recognized as an affordable development option for young open-wheel talent. From 1985 to 1990 two separate championships were conducted on the east and west coasts. The series provided the stage for some of the top North American drivers of the past thirty years to establish themselves, and launched many drivers into successful CART (and later Champ Car) careers.

Because it did produced driving talent of a similar caliber and at a similar rate to CART's Indy Lights series, it was adopted as the official feeder series to CART in 2002, with Indy Lights being cancelled. In response, a handful of old CART Lights teams switched series. Beginning in 2006 the series offered a $2 million scholarship for its champion, put towards securing a ride in the Champ Car World Series, CART's successor. That year, Simon Pagenaud took the deal and went to Walker Racing. However, 2007 champion Raphael Matos passed on the money to drive in the IRL's Firestone Indy Lights.

With Champ Car's dissolution in 2008, and the presence of Indy Lights, the Atlantic Championship became a stand-alone feeder series for the past two years, launching talent but dropping off in terms of car count and popularity. Johnston purchased the series in late 2008 after previously attempting to start a "Green Prix" series that would have utilized former Champ Cars in an attempt to build an environmentally-friendly racing series.

The series persevered with some interesting scheduling choices over the past two years, mostly supporting sports car races, but with a few feature events thrown in. A makeshift calendar was drawn up in 2008 after Champ Car's dissolution, as most Atlantic races were run in conjunction with that series, and many race weekends were cancelled. Unfortunately, as was the issue with Champ Car, many races that the Atlantic folks scheduled themselves fell through over the past few years, such as a potential support race with Formula 1 in Montreal, Canada in June of this year. To fill out the schedule, a number of race weekends (especially the features) were designed as doubleheader events.

Combine those scheduling issues with the lack of direct sanctioning, and the Atlantic Championship's demise is easy to understand. Sadly, its 36 years of history - making it the longest running feeder series in North America - looks to be a closed book for now, with no driver set to add his name to the illustrious list of Atlantic champions in the near future.

Opinion: De Silvestro Ready For Success

As far as diversity in major-league motorsports goes, the IZOD IndyCar Series has most of the racing world beat. For one, there's the biggest female racing star in the world right now, Danica Patrick. There's owner-driver Sarah Fisher, whose program has expanded gradually every year since she started her own team, and will even field two cars in some races this year. There's Ana Beatriz, a Firestone Indy Lights Series graduate who will make her IndyCar debut in her home country of Brazil in a week and a half. And yes, Milka Duno may still be hanging around.

But Simona de Silvestro may have the talent to surpass all of them.

The Swiss driver, 21, will join HVM Racing for the duration of the schedule after three years in the Atlantic Championship. Bringing her Atlantic sponsor, Stargate Worlds, with her, she will be one of up to four drivers competing for Rookie of the Year this season.

De Silvestro's first year in Atlantics, 2007, was a struggle, as is to be expected from a young driver moving up. But in 2008, she won the season-opening race at Long Beach, moving up to eighth in points at the end of the year. Last season, she dominated for much of the year, winning four races and staying in the title hunt until falling out of the final race of the year on the first lap. Eventually she finished third in points.

That's three more wins than Beatriz had over two years in Indy Lights, although each woman has a third and an eighth place finish in the standings of their respective series. As for Patrick, she never won an Atlantic race in two seasons despite running for a top team.

Katherine Legge was the last woman to dominate the Atlantic Championship, having spent much of 2005 on top and finishing third in the standings that year with three wins. Legge won in her first career Atlantic start, the 2005 season opener at Long Beach, and was even given a Formula 1 test at the end of the year for her efforts.

Legge, unfortunately, flamed out in Champ Car, perhaps a result of only spending one year in a major development series. A major crash at Road America in her rookie year, 2006, may also have affected her psyche. She has spent the past two years in the German DTM series, but has not yet scored a point in that series.

What gives de Silvestro an advantage over all of these other women, however, is the fact that she has spent enough time in developmental series to learn what it takes to drive consistently well. All of the other drivers in question had major ups and downs in their development seasons, and none of them really spent enough time in one major series to have a barnstorming championship run. Even Legge's 2005 season was marred by four finishes outside of the top five. Last year, de Silvestro only finished worse than fifth on two occasions. Nine races out of 12 she stood on the podium.

Unlike Beatriz, she doesn't have to focus on finding funding to run the rest of the season. Unlike Fisher, she doesn't have to balance the day-to-day responsibilities of running a race team. She can just focus on driving the race car.

In terms of gender, her only competition is Danica Patrick, who seems to be more and more of a falling star every minute. Three disastrous stock car runs, capped off by running full-throttle into the back of another car in Las Vegas, have shaken her. She has improved on her previous year's championship ranking every year since joining IndyCar, topping off at fifth last year, but with more competitive cars capable of winning on the grid this year, she may take a hit. She hasn't won a race since the split-series weekend in early 2008, and even that was won on fuel mileage.

Danica's celebrity is the biggest thing she has going for her, and it gets in the way of her racing. More and more people simply know her as the "Go Daddy girl," and more and more people are going to know her as a stock car driver as she inevitably expands her schedule in those cars.

De Silvestro will not have to face the pressure of being Danica Patrick, and that may be her biggest advantage of all. The expectations on her are not so great, as she is a rookie with zero oval experience driving for a single-car team that has unfortunately brought up the back of the grid for the past couple of years. Then again, last year's issues were partially due to a string of bad luck, and expanding to two cars mid-season began stretching the team's resources thin.

But because of that lack of pressure, she can work with HVM at her own pace, knowing that she will be somewhat competitive at the very least on road and street courses. For what it's worth, De Silvestro bested Patrick in the final open IndyCar test session last week.

By the time the oval sections of the schedule finally come up, de Silvestro will hopefully have had some competitive runs on the road and street circuits. With the confidence that she can run up front in the right situation, she should be just fine on the ovals once she gets a little experience.

Within a few years, provided the team sticks together and make progress, we may see Simona de Silvestro in the winner's circle with relative frequency. Time may anoint her a more accomplished driver than Patrick, if she can avoid the pitfalls of poor equipment and excessive celebrity.

De Silvestro Set For 2010

Confirmed via the Twitter accounts of both driver and team, Swiss driver Simona de Silvestro will contest the entire 2010 IZOD IndyCar Series schedule for HVM Racing. She will drive the No. 78 Team Stargate Worlds Dallara-Honda.

De Silvestro, 21, has spent the past three years in the Atlantic Championship, with a best finish of third last year. In 34 career Atlantic starts, she has five wins, four of them coming last year with US RaceTronics (operating under the Stargate Worlds banner). She was in the championship hunt for most of last season, before a retirement on the first lap of the season finale knocked her from contention. Her performance helped her earn a handful of IndyCar tests this offseason, in which she performed respectably.

HVM ran one car for E.J. Viso for most of last season before taking on Robert Doornbos just over halfway in. Viso failed to finish his first seven races, while the best finish Doornbos could muster in five events for the team was 10th place. This came in stark contrast to Doornbos' 2007 season with the team in Champ Car, where he finished third in the championship and won rookie of the year for the team, then known as Minardi Team USA.

Doornbos was originally to run for HVM again in 2010, but funding did not come through. Doornbos' uniform in 2009 carried patches for energy drink maker Red Bull and financial institution ING, although the car itself did not. Red Bull gave Doornbos three starts in Formula 1 in 2006 and ING, like Doornbos, is Dutch. It appears, however, that a difficult season marred by feuding with onetime teammate Graham Rahal and poor performance on ovals ended those sponsorships.

Stargate Worlds is an online role-playing video game that is part of the Stargate science fiction franchise. Still in production, it will be the second Stargate video game to be released. 2010 will be the second season of open-wheel sponsorship for Stargate Worlds and developer Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment.