LEWIS Hamilton's name will figure highly when Race of Champions organisers draw up their list of invitees for next year's event.
There had been talk of British star Hamilton, who finished runner-up in his rookie Formula One season, competing in yesterday's end-of-season showpiece at Wembley.
Sadly, a long-standing sponsorship arrangement prevented the 22-year-old from takin
g on the likes of Michael Schumacher, Jenson Button, David Coulthard, Andy Priaulx and winner Mattias Ekstrom.
Hamilton's presence would certainly have swelled a 50,000 crowd to potential sell-out proportions.
Despite that figure Fredrik Jonsson, one of the co-founders of an event that has run for 20 years, is hopeful of not only returning to Wembley next year, but of attracting Hamilton.
"There is every chance we will come back," said Jonsson.
"We had been hoping for a sell-out, but we sold more than 50,000 tickets, which is good.
"I don't know whether the fact two big football matches were moved to Sunday (Arsenal v Chelsea and Liverpool v Manchester United] maybe changed something.
"I'm sure if Lewis had been involved then we would also have had a bigger crowd because he did a fantastic job this year, and he is so popular.
"Lewis has always said he wants to do it, and we certainly hope we can work something out so he can make it next year."
Plans for next year's event, and the prospect of again staging it at Wembley, will start immediately.
"We will have a debrief, starting this week, and then in the new year we will sit down and analyse our options," added Jonsson.
"But generally we're very happy."
From humble beginnings, the event has certainly grown over the years, attracting motor racing's top stars from all fields and is enormously popular with those who compete.
"It has grown tremendously since we were in Gran Canaria, but moving to a big stadium in central Europe has changed the dynamics," reflected Jonsson.
"We're closer to the audience than we were in the Canaries when we were a long way out, so step by step we are learning things.
"We still have a lot to learn and improve. The ambition is always to improve, make it better and hopefully we can do that."
The full article contains 389 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
