Baku, August 24, AZERTAC

Part of Formula 1’s brave new world of fan engagement is the two-seater program that’s set to become a GP weekend staple next season. Luckily, there’s nine years worth of two-seater experience in Australia to call on, according to motorsport.com.

There’s a lot of hype around the two-seater program at the moment, as former Minardi boss Paul Stoddart prepares to take his slick show on the road to each and every Grand Prix next year. He’s even hired Mike Gascoyne to give the cars an aesthetic birthday.

But anyone who’s been to an Australian Grand Prix at any point over the last nine years will tell you that the concept isn’t entirely unique. In fact, anyone who has lived in any inner-city Melbourne suburb within a V10 scream of Albert Park within the last nine years can tell you all about the ‘Minardi’ two-seater - otherwise known as Melbourne’s Grand Prix weekend alarm clock.

Since 2009 the V10-powered two-seater has been a regular visitor to the AGP. And it’s famously been locked in to an early morning track allocation, which means that at around 7:15am from the Thursday before the race onwards, a Cosworth V10 can be heard far and wide around the city and its surrounds.

So while the scale of taking the two-seaters to Formula 1 races around the world is new, the idea itself has been well-honed down under.

“We started looking at it in 2006,” Craig Fletcher, the AGPC’s General Manager - Motorsport and Entertainment said.

As the back of the ticket always says, motorsport is dangerous. Getting people not routinely involved in the sport inside a racing car and out on a race track is an arduous task at the best of times. When it’s a Formula 1 car, it’s even more difficult.

“When we got the car over in 2009, and we put together the indemnities, the safety requirements, and the medical checks,” adds Fletcher.

“We worked with the Alfred Hospital and our chief medical offices at the time and created a medical indemnity that people fill out. We put the whole programme together.”

And that’s considering it just from an insurance perspective; there’s also the operational burden of effectively running two high-maintenance Formula 1 cars across a race weekend, even if they’re not actually racing.

Between the AGPC and Stoddart the entire process has been refined over the best part of a decade. So it’s little surprise that FOM hasn’t just borrowed the idea from Australia, but used the AGPC’s processes as a blueprint for its own worldwide two-seater programme.

“We had Chase Carey, Sean Bratches and Ross Brawn at our event this year and it was a great opportunity for them to see how we do it in Melbourne,” says Fletcher.

“We were more than happy to help Formula 1 because Australia and Melbourne has always seen this as a great asset. You can’t get much closer to being a Formula 1 driver than sitting in the back of a Formula 1 car. So we’ve always encouraged its use, and we’re quite excited that Formula 1 is going to take it around the world.”