USF1 -- F1's All-American Challenger

[Giblet]

Williams already had cosworth v8's on their shelf and all the experience that comes with them. With standardized ecu in effect setup will not be difficult, and usf1 has the dimensions so there is no excuse to not have a mockup engine at the least. The cossy boys will make sure the engine is not the potential emberassing factor, and will assist, like any engine supplier.

[Belatti]

So, supposidly in a recent interview, Lopez indicated the second driver would be announced within 10 days. and that the Cosworth engines would not arrive until the 15th of February.

That second part seems unlikely.

I don't speak spanish so the link is:
http://www.f1latam.com/noticias.php?idn=8774

Journalist: A while ago you have visited the team factory, wich whwere your firsts impressions?
Lopez: more than good, the team is very professional and they are in F1 tio achieve, but it will be a though year...

About the 2nd driver and the engine shipping you are right.

Lopez: The idea is to test the car before February begins, engines will be in Charlotte february 15th. Then we have to try to finish the car to test the 3 days availiable we have got.

[Roger the knife]

You can be sure that USF1 have an accurate mock up of the Cosworth, so for build purposes, they don't need a real engine until they really are at the stage of ready to fire it up. I can still see the scenario of them turning up at the first race with two untested cars, but thta's all that matters right now, if the cars get there, they've fulfilled their commitment.

[cooper-climax]

CA2006


CA2006?


CA2010.


CA2010?

[xpensive]

Difficult to judge what is engine mock-up or not C-C, but that's not a transverse gearbox, that much is for certain.
There would have been some sign of bearings on the side of it.

[cooper-climax]

Perhaps I'm just being simple here. I was just going by the gold sides on the CA2006 airbox.

[djos]

there is a black lead of some sort on the left cylinder bank of each engine and in the pic of engine with the gear box you can see that identical lead going to the gearbox.

Edit: the gold stuff on the engine with the chassis is heat shielding so it's prolly a real engine from Cosworths last foray into F1.

[Roger the knife]

Hearing rumours through ACG in Heanor, that USF1 maybe in big trouble and close to shutting down. Has anyone over the pond heard any stories about this..

[CMSMJ1]

I hope they manage to make it as it will be a shame for the fans if they don't.

[jddh1]

Hearing rumours through ACG in Heanor, that USF1 maybe in big trouble and close to shutting down. Has anyone over the pond heard any stories about this..

WOW

[Alexpcenteno]

I was there a few days ago and there were cars coming and going all the time! Very busy and it was a saturday morning. I hope they can make it.

P.S. - At the parking lot there was a Lotus Elise parked! Very cool looking little car!

[segedunum]

Hearing rumours through ACG in Heanor, that USF1 maybe in big trouble and close to shutting down.

So what else is new? That doesn't surprise me. The new revelation that they haven't even got a supply of Cosworths delivered yet when other teams have had theirs evaluated, tested and fitted weeks ago is a pretty definitive nail in the coffin to me. That suggests they either can't pay their bills (and I'm shocked that the FIA didn't move to ensure this far earlier) or they are sandbagging on their situation for as long as they can. Their alleged test at Barber later this month doesn't ring true either, since no one seems to know anything about it - including the Barber circuit themselves. I haven't even heard of any crash tests for their chassis penned in yet, so that puts talk of any test firmly on the back-burner.

Only so much cannot ring true, and it really doesn't matter how many cars are coming and going from their factory. Campos are in exactly the same situation.

[Jersey Tom]

Close to shutting down? Doesn't make sense. Don't see how the planning could have been SO off to run out of money in less than one season.

[nacho]

Not very convincing to blame Cosworth when Williams is already testing in Valencia, and they must have had the engines for weeks. So is Virgin and Lotus supposed to be having their cars shaken down and shown very soon. Can't think of anything else than that they haven't convinced Cosworth to have the engines before paying them and they haven't been able to pay for them, therefore naturally are without the enginges?

[Chaparral]

Well as usual its a contrary report to whats actually happening - I was in contact with a senior Speed TV exec through last week chasing some DVD rights and I asked the question of USGPE and he said they were all on track and would most likely have a DVD available on the formation and building of the team - so I have to go with the opinion of someone who is actually in the know then a bunch of speculators - btw the USGPE operation is in the same block as the Speed TV offices.