The national-team format was conceived in 2003 by Sheikh Maktoum of Dubai. Once FIA backing was secured, thirty franchises were offered for sale — twenty-three assigned to specific nations, seven open to tender. Twenty-five franchises were sold in time for the first season. Competitors solely represented their country, and drivers were required to hold the same nationality as the team for which they raced, making nationality rather than contractual status the primary selection criterion.
The inaugural 2005–06 season opened at Brands Hatch on 25 September 2005, with Nelson Piquet Jr. winning the first race for A1 Team Brazil. A1 Team France dominated the first campaign and were crowned champions with 172 points, ahead of Switzerland on 121. Katherine Legge tested a car in December 2005 at Dubai Autodrome, becoming the first woman to drive an A1GP car.
In the 2006–07 season, A1 Team Germany won the title by 35 points from A1 Team New Zealand. Sheikh Maktoum resigned as chairman during the season, with RAB Capital acquiring his 80% stake for a reported $200 million. The 2007–08 season saw A1 Team Switzerland, driven by Neel Jani, take the championship in the final year of the original Lola-Zytek car. The fourth and final completed season, 2008–09, saw A1 Team Ireland with Ulsterman Adam Carroll win the championship in the only year using the A1GP Powered by Ferrari car.
Two generations of car were used across the series. The first generation was the Lola B05/52 — officially the Lola A1GP — powered by a 3.4-litre Zytek V8 producing 520 bhp in normal running and 550 bhp in PowerBoost mode. Cars ran on Cooper tyres. PowerBoost was available four times in the Sprint Race and eight times in the Feature Race; it activated only when the throttle exceeded 80% and speed exceeded 60 km/h. The chassis weighed 615 kg without driver or fuel.
For the 2008–09 season the Lola chassis was replaced by a car developed in partnership with Ferrari, using an upgraded Ferrari F2004 platform fitted with a 4.5-litre Ferrari/Maserati V8 producing up to 600 bhp in PowerBoost mode. Michelin supplied tyres for this season. The partnership was intended to span six seasons, but the series folded before the arrangement could be renewed.
Grands Prix of Nations took place over three days. Two one-hour practice sessions ran on Friday, with a further session Saturday morning. A two-hour qualifying session on Saturday afternoon used a format divided into four ten-minute segments, with results from sessions one and two setting the Sprint Race grid and results from sessions three and four setting the Feature Race grid. Sunday featured two races: a shorter Sprint Race of up to 24 minutes plus one lap with a rolling start, and a longer Feature Race of approximately 180 km with a standing start. Mandatory pit stops — one in the Sprint Race, two in the Feature Race — required all four tyres to be changed. Teams could field different drivers across practice, qualifying and the races, provided each race or qualifying driver had participated in at least one practice session.
Points were not awarded to individual drivers but to national teams, enabling driver changes between rounds without affecting a team's championship standing.
The fifth season opener at the Nikon SuperGP meeting in Australia was cancelled five days before practice was due to begin, with the series unable to confirm race logistics or finances. Subsequent rounds in China and Malaysia were also cancelled, effectively ending the series. A legal dispute in January 2010 at the High Court of Justice in London over ownership of the cars resulted in the administrator, Tim Bramston, winning the case and being charged with realising assets. GoIndustry DoveBid was appointed to manage asset sales, with the liquidators seeking £10 million.
The former Lola A1GP chassis subsequently found use in the Euroseries 3000, later known as Auto GP. In 2014 the International Sport Racing Association acquired the Lola-Zytek cars and ran a brief competition called Formula Acceleration 1. In 2015 AFRIX Motorsport of South Africa purchased the remaining 21 "Powered by Ferrari" A1GP cars from a freight company that had been granted a lien over them for unpaid transport bills, with plans for a South African single-make series.
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