Could RoC victory push Albuquerque onto greater things?

Due to family commitments, I was unable to watch the Race of Champions live last Sunday. Imagine my surprise when I get home to find that Portuguese racer Filipe Albuquerque had beaten the likes of 7-time World Rally champion Sebastien Loeb and newly-crowned F1 champ Sebastian Vettel to win!

To give you a bit of background into the one with the long name, Albuquerque was once a member of the Red Bull Junior Team that produced Vettel. However, when the Austrian energy drink brand dropped him his single-seater career stalled. This found him landing in Italian GTs in 2009 with the Audi Sport Italia team. He has also had the chance to race for the team's Superstars Series squad, racing at his home round in Portimao for the last two years, picking up two runner-up spots last year before claiming a victory in 2010.

After the RoC win, I said on Twitter how this should boost his career. Autosport then ran a story the following day with the headline: "Albuquerque: Roc win no career boost". Now, this is actually a bit unfair, as what he actually said when asked whether it would bring a career boost was "I don't know".

I am of course fully aware that winning the Race of Champions doesn't make you a great racing driver. It doesn't mean Albuquerque could go to any race series and beat the likes of Vettel and Schumacher. However, it will boost his profile. No longer is he just 'another racing driver'.

I think that this could help Albuquerque to get a seat in a higher profile series than Italian GTs. He is an Audi driver in Italy, and of course Audi run a DTM team. He has proven with his occasional Superstars appearances that he can drive a powerful touring car, so I think Audi should give him a shot. They recently got rid of Alexandre Premat, so there's definitely a seat going. F3 conqueror Edoardo Mortara will test for the team in the near future, and can no doubt do a good job for them too. If it was up to me, I'd ditch Katherine Legge, who was well outperformed this year by fellow British girl Susie Stoddart. However, it isn't, so we'll see what happens.