It is with exitement that I recieved the invitation about a week ago. I have had dreams about the presentation, and in my dream, the presentation was to be held at the Hoog Catherijne shopping mall in Utrecht, and the livery would be orange, with spider webs.
I really need to learn to listen to my dreams. After all, the actual spot of the presentation: The Maarsbergen estate, from which Carel Godin de Beaufort used to travel all over the world in his orange colored Porsche 917b. Carel was the first Dutch driver to score points in the formula 1 championship. He finished 6th 4 times in his career which so abruptly ended on August 1st 1964. A crash at the Nurnburgring caused soo many internal injuries that he died a day later in the University medical centre of Cologne.
As for the livery: we’ll get to that.
Since I don’t have a car, I had to go by train. From googlemaps, it appeared to be a small walk from the Maarn trainstation to the Maarsbergen estate… boy can googlemaps be decieving. The small walk proved larger than I would have been comfortable with, and with no signs/ directions/ passers-by on the way to ask wheather I was still going the right way. But evedentily I was, since eventually, the small forest path merged with a road, and to my delight, I say this :
From that moment on, I was sure I had been going the right way all along. Behind it, I found this sign:
So, I went that way.
The actual location was perhaps smaller than I expected, but it was a pleasant location nonetheless. So I went in, ordered a coffee, drank that, walked around a bit, tried to see which livery had been chosen ( after all, white, when wet, has a tendency to become somewhat translucent ) and mingled in the crowd.
After about 30 minutes, the actual presentation began, with Pete Da Silva, Jan Lammers, Arie Luyendijk jr., Jeroen Bleekemolen and Jaap Hofman ( Chief sports of RTL television). All of them did tell their stories, introduced as they were by Allard Kalff. The only actual news came from Jaap Hofman, who informed us that next season, the A1GP races will be shown on a fixed time ( so I guess that’s no more getting up early to see the races ).
Things became really interesting when the audience got to ask some questions. It soon became appearant that: 1: journalists don’t know a thing, and 2: for some reason, people didn’t have that many good questions. The ones that stood out were about new teams and as to wheather team RFH has been approached by other franchise holders to run their team.
The unveiling: After all: that is why we were there for, right ? I must say that I didn’t choose that design, but now that I have seen it, I can only say: WOW. The polygon design really works well on the car, and it’s easily the most colorfull car in the series today, as there are 60 colors used. The actual livery has been designed by JanWillem Bouwknegt, of NPK industrial designs, and was done using vinyl decals by Trimline.
In all it has been a pleasant day, and I can’t wait to see the car in action 
Some additional info:
1) Pete Da Silva said we don’t have to expect new teams for season 3. They now have the rule that if a team can’t make it to the tests, it’s out, unless it can organise it’s own tests. For season 4, the first announcements for new teams will be made very soon ( September/ October ).
2) Team RFH (Racing For Holland) has been approached by other franchiseholders to run a team other than team Netherlands. Jan Lammers however, has opted not to do so for now, since he wants to break even first, before having to invest in new personel for a second A1 team.
3) JanWillem Bouwknegt is working at NPK industrial design, who in the past allready have made some nice practical designs for pretty much anything. Their website is http://www.npk.nl
4) In applying the design, the team has opted for vinyl decals, instead of a paintjob because of the following reasons:
a: With 60 colors used, masking taping and spraying paint would take a lot of time and thus money, and
b: The design in vinyl decals is a full 2 kilos lighter than the paintwork would have been.
The vinyl decals have been made and applied by Trim Line http://www.trim-line.nl/
5) The hamster is on a vacation. Allthough his current wereabouts are unknown, team Netherlands general manager Robert Hoever assured me he will be back
Untill next time,
Richard Renes