If all goes to plan the first round of the Superleague Formula championship should take place at Donington Park at the end of the month.

Superleague Formula is an attempt to bring the worlds of motor racing and football together. Each car is built to an identical specification and run in the colours of a different football team.

So far, 15 teams have signed up for the Superleague, including British squads Rangers and Tottenham Hotspur, from the Scottish and English premier leagues respectively.

But what I want to know is, who actually wants this championship?

The European racing scene is already very well catered for by mid-level spec series. GP2 and World Series by Renault are established routes into Formula 1. A1 Grand Prix is gradually carving out a niche for itself.

So where is the demand for Superleague Formula? The organisers reckon fans are very excited about the new championship:

“The reaction from the fans was absolutely amazing. They went mad for it. And then once they had seen the car, they went mental.”

But where are these fans? There’s no obvious buzz of anticipation in the motor racing and football forums I checked out. I don’t know any motor racing fans who are counting down the days to the first Superleague match race and football fans, as you’d expect, are rather more interested in the start of the new season.

No, the ‘demand’ for Superleague is entirely commercial – or so the organisers hope. Running cars in the colours of popular football teams gives them the chance to capture sponsors who can’t afford the kind of sums needed to appear on a Manchester United or Real Madrid shirt. Not that either of those football mega-brands are represented in Superleague.

The organisers are keen to avoid comparisons with the aborted Premier 1 GP project of a few years ago. But that’s all the Superleague really is – a warmed-over version of an idea that’s failed once before.

Only three weeks ago Oulton Pak drew its largest crowd to a BTCC race in a decade – on the same weekend major events were running at Silverstone and Brands Hatch. There’s plenty of excellent, proper motor racing that doesn’t need to leech off the success of football to attract crowds and sponsors.