At the weekend, at the South African round of A1GP at Kyalami, series boss Tony Teixeira – a South African himself – was bullish when speaking to South African newspaper The Times. And doubtless the paper chose to pass on his more bullish comments.

“Everything we are is what Formula 1 is trying to be.”

The paper also quotes him as saying that Formula 1 is “like professional wrestling, lacking in credibility”. It’s been widely reported that he some advice for Bernie Ecclestone: “Instead of copying all the ideas from A1GP — just buy me out!”

The amusing point is that Teixeira is very keen on getting into Formula 1. Indeed, speaking to autosport.com this week about his plans to build a motorsport base in Portugal near the Portimao circuit, he said: “it means nothing without F1″.

He looked at buying the teams that have been potentially for sale in recent times, but now looks like setting up his own team. Why?

“The only reason we want an F1 team is for the winners of A1 to go to F1.”

I’m not sure about that logic. It’s implicitly admitting that A1GP is beneath Formula 1. That might be objectively true, but I was under the impression that A1GP was to be seen as a viable alternative to Formula 1.

On the one hand, an A1GP team in Formula 1 might be good advertising for the series itself. But drivers might be less keen to commit to A1GP as a career option if it’s seen by even the series boss as a stepping stone to Formula 1. After all, there’s always the IndyCar Series, which certainly doesn’t see itself like that.