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Well... impact on F1. Consider: which F1 team generates the most enthusiasms? Ferrari - partly cos of their road cars, and partly because Ferrari *is* Italy. (I know not all tifosi are Italians, but bear with me.) None of the other F1 teams generate the same level of support - and I think that's partly because none of the other F1 teams appeals to people's sense of national pride - McLaren and Williams are British teams with German backing and Minardi are a British- and Italian-based, Australian-owned, Italian team with British/American engines and Japanese tyres - you catch my drift?
When A1GP kicks off, and you have a British driver in a British team's car or a frenchman in a french team or whatever, that has to appeal to that most basic instinct of sporting support - patriotism, and that's bound to grip people's attention more than the mish-mash that is F1.
With F1 being so ridiculously over-complicated, and with it's organisers (for want of a better word) randomly trying out a load of frankly ludicrous ideas in an attempt to maintain a "spectacle", and with most of the teams unable to really secure a cohort of diehard fans, the kind of racing that A1GP will offer - with standard Lola chassis and standard Zytek engines and standard (er, something) tyres really pitting drivers against each other in a way that F1 conspicuously fails to do - then I think you get something that could make F1 look a little bit silly.
So what effect could it have on F1? Firstly, if it looks like it could attract more viewers (or a more attractive international spread of viewers), then it could attract sponsorship away from F1. Given A1GP's predominantly "southern-hemisphere" approach, and the recent entry into F1 of big bucks from the Middle-East and SE Asia, there is potentially a serious financial impact on the predominantly European F1. Secondly, if it proves to be the series that best pits driver against driver, then each nation's No 1 driver will surely want to compete in it, especially if they start to think all patriotically. If drivers start to think "Well, so long as TGF is here, I'm never going to realistically win F1, but I could win A1GP..." then that is what they'll do - and then it follows that the F1 grid will fill with all the nations' No 2 drivers. And what kind of entertainment will that be?
But that's just my opinion.
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