Two US F1 team trailers have been put up for sale on eBay. The trailers were originally purchased from Brawn GP, and were planned to be used for the 2010 season. However, when USF1 ran into difficulties just weeks before the start of the season, which were discribed by the team as "serious economic and funding challenges", they were unable to make the grid in Bahrain.
Post here all non technical related topics about Formula One. This includes race results, discussions, testing analysis etc. TV coverage and other personal questions should be in Off topic chat.
NexKing wrote:You mean if they are given another year that they could make it? They only announced their F1 team in Feb of 09, so it now takes 2 years to build a F1 team? Somebody call Lotus and tell them they can't compete this year because it's not possible to build an F1 team in in less than one year.
More to the point, with all those proper racing organisations queuing to get in F1 will USF1 be given a second chance by FIA who were rightfully bashed by just about everyone for making the mess out of the selection process.
It is rumoured that Hurly moved on to Campos to try and cobble a team together there. But that made me think about the whole reason he doing it. Initially I thought he wasn't that much interested in racing and the whole idea was to support an American effort in top world class racing series and not just get involved in F1 in any way possible. But then, why Campos? Why not get into partnership with an existing team?
If Hurley plans to promote Youtube or another business via F1 he must know that a title sponsorship will cost him more than what he is spending with USF1. So why is he stalling at this point? Buying Campos to get the Dallara car, selling off the Campos ticket to Stefan would involve serious money. It makes no sense to spend it there if he isn't prepared to spend it at USF1.
Formula One's fundamental ethos is about success coming to those with the most ingenious engineering and best ..............................organization, not to those with the biggest budget. (Dave Richards)
You're answering your own questions, WB. Hurley is willing to spend the money, just not with Windsor and Anderson. The lack of money is just a symptom - the real cause for USF1's failure was mismanagement, pure and simple.
Pup wrote:You're answering your own questions, WB. Hurley is willing to spend the money, just not with Windsor and Anderson. The lack of money is just a symptom - the real cause for USF1's failure was mismanagement, pure and simple.
It still sounds to me like a chicken and egg story. W&A fail to find the money Hurley is prepared to stump up but just not with them at the helm? I'm not totally buying that. In the case of Windsor I agree that he hasn't been too usefull. In Anderson's case it looks like he could deliver given the funds. Not a convincing story.
Formula One's fundamental ethos is about success coming to those with the most ingenious engineering and best ..............................organization, not to those with the biggest budget. (Dave Richards)
They have already taken another step back because it looks like they don't even have a driver anymore. If you check Lopez's web site the story about PW telling them that they don't have a car is on there. I would love to see USF1 and Campos come together and make but I don't see it happening. I would say go get the Dallara chassis and keep working on the type 1 and when its done you try using it. This year is going to be one of testing at this point if you can put something together. I don't think that those two could pull something like that off. It would take someone that truly knows what their doing to pull those two teams together and I don't see the current management being able to do it.
Looking at the whole approach of the USF1 team (tricky gearbox solutions for their rookie year, leaf springs and live axles etc. ) it's not hard to believe that Hurly wants to keep his money as far away as possible from peterandken. But then Campos isn't exactly the most efficient organisation either given the fact that their participation has been questioned for awhile now. The only benefit I can see is getting a cheap(er) sponsorship deal taking advantage of the uncertainty surrounding the new team (like Virgin did last year, but that's a different story).
NexKing, what made you think that Type1 is somehow a more perspective project to develop than the one designed by Dallara?
Pandamasque wrote:But then, why Campos? Why not get into partnership with an existing team?
Buy a broke Campos F1 for cheap, sell the F1 license to StefanGP for the same price, transfer Dallara contract to USF1 for free!
USF1 are proving just how well organised existing teams really are.
I honestly do feel sorry for all the staff at USF1. They've worked their butts off, just to be let down by bumbling management.
This shows us all how good Minardi & even Super Aguri were to survive as long as they did.
Any post(s) made by this user are (semi-)educated opinion(s), based on random fact(s) blurred by the smudges of time.
Any fact(s) claimed by this user will be supplemented by a link to the original source of said fact(s).
Guess you know me by now, there is no "USF1 chassis", just a video of two guys putting together a shell on top of a dust-bin and CAD-image.
Hurley was taken by a couple of losers with some peripheral F1 xperience of two decades back, why the only reason I can see he would spend more money on this sorry outfit is to keep the "USF1"-gimmick. After getting rid of PeeWee and Anderson, he could buy the Dallara chassis, get someone with a vague idea of what they are doing to run it, while Campos can sell their entry to Stefan if they wish. Keep Lopez and the 8 MUSD and hire an xperienced driver with some US-connection for show.
There's no reason to be in NC though, nothing there, that petit autoclave, big enough for a nosecone, is leased anyway. Even the name is doubtful, when the entry is given for "US F1 Team", not xactly Coca Cola, is it?
But Hurley is the key, the "seed-money" is wasted, q is if he's interested to give it another try with the real McCoy?
Last edited by xpensive on 18 Feb 2010, 08:57, edited 1 time in total.
"I spent most of my money on wine and women...I wasted the rest"
Pandamasque wrote:Looking at the whole approach of the USF1 team (tricky gearbox solutions for their rookie year, leaf springs and live axles etc. ) it's not hard to believe that Hurly wants to keep his money as far away as possible from peterandken. But then Campos isn't exactly the most efficient organisation either given the fact that their participation has been questioned for awhile now. The only benefit I can see is getting a cheap(er) sponsorship deal taking advantage of the uncertainty surrounding the new team (like Virgin did last year, but that's a different story).
NexKing, what made you think that Type1 is somehow a more perspective project to develop than the one designed by Dallara?
Blurb on the SpeedTV forum posted this
In my slow witted attempt to weave something out of all the unconfirmed rumors I would offer this, Ken and Peter were faced with an offer from the Chadster and things went South quickly between Ken and Peter. Chad offered (demanded) that USF1 take the Dallara car and stop the work on Kens car. Peter saw the sense in being on the grid Ken saw a life long friend turn against his vision. Chad got a no from Ken, now Peter is in a place none of us would ever want to be.
Now I know that's just like everyone guessing what happened at Tigers house between him and his wife before hitting a tree. But it fits to much. The report that Peter had thrown in the towel to he's still with the team at the moment but I don't know what he's doing, Hurley talking with everybody. And I know how I would be if the people who had the same goal as I did decided that my baby was to far behind to get the job done. The purpose of the team was to be US car and US driver. We know that the US driver thing is not happening this year. The car would be the only thing that the team had left. So is the Type 1 better than the Dallara, I don't know. But if your if you completely give up on your mission statement I don't see you being able to get anyone to give you any more money. What I'm saying is if your trying to save the team, you have to get the Type 1 on the track this year.
Fil wrote:This shows us all how good Minardi & even Super Aguri were to survive as long as they did.
Starting from scratch like USF1 is trying to do (or should I say "tried" to do ) is a very tough task. I think Super Aguri started with, at least, a 4-year-old Arrows, complete with Honda support. That's already a significant difference. Not sure how Minardi started, though, but that would be ages ago and these are times when F1 cars are getting more and more complex and require a lot of modern day technology to design, build, and race.
I think what it really shows is that you have to have a sensible approach to the task at hand, rather than just boasting about great ideas for the show. An interesting comparison is that Campos are in similarly doom conditions, but is much less bashed on the forums. I think that's because they at least had the sense to avoid being a clown of the sport, which PW exactly is as of now.
guys more passionate than having the recources to actually get the job done
guys more passionate than able(=organised) to get things done
guys feeding their egos instead of doing what is necessary
guys dreaming and not realising that this is real and it is tough
anyone involved in F1 has had to face this from goony to Willis ,Newey,Schu,Lauda you name it.
WhiteBlue wrote:So why is he stalling at this point? Buying Campos to get the Dallara car, selling off the Campos ticket to Stefan would involve serious money. It makes no sense to spend it there if he isn't prepared to spend it at USF1.
This has been discussed before. Chicken and egg. Chad Hurley is doing what any reasonable businessman would do - he is looking at the vibes he is getting and looking at actual progress. As far as he can see zero progress has been made relative to what's required, and that's exactly what we've seen throughout this whole thread. I don't know how many more pictures you can take of incomplete, black composite tubs - which could just be mock-ups anyway. There is zero chance of a car coming out of that and that has been repeated umpteen times. The USF1 car is dead. Gone. Finito. It's a stiff. Pushing up daises. No one is going to put any more money into that.
He is looking at any reasonable efforts that can be made to salvage the situation and salvage USF1 as a team, which is admirable, and that is to build on work already done with the Dallara car. It's what USF1 should have done to start off with by taking over a team or building on something, and if they were going to start from scratch then they needed at least one head honcho with solid F1 experience like Mike Gascoyne at Lotus who could put together a team with the experience needed. Quite frankly, even if Campos do get to the grid, or USF1 buy their chassis and race, without that experience I think they'll be a danger to themselves as well as others.
Most, or all, of that is recycling old gossip. There is a tempting bit about an insider saying there are cash problems, but note they don't say it is a direct source, so that could easily have been lifted from Atlas forum.
The auotweek story seems to have the most recent first hand news:
dp35 wrote:Interesting article on Autoweek Magazine's website today, saying their scheduled USF1 for today was cancelled with no further comment, and that PW has been replaced at Speed TV.
This is sad... the more I read about this the more the I belive they are not going to make it. In fact I went to the factory in january and I've saw a lot of movement of cars and people, but as I went there for the second time last week there was not even some at the front desk to receive visitors...
Well... at first it seemed like I good ideia this all-american team but as we all know americans prefer the "left turn" NASCAR, not that I don't like it but without fan support there is no sponsors even though we could list an infinite number of american companies that could do give USF1 a boost. Either this or miss management is the reason we are problaby going to see 24 cars at bahrain.
"Racing, competing, it's in my blood. It's part of me, it's part of my life; I have been doing it all my life and it stands out above everything else." - Ayrton Senna
WhiteBlue wrote:So why is he stalling at this point? Buying Campos to get the Dallara car, selling off the Campos ticket to Stefan would involve serious money. It makes no sense to spend it there if he isn't prepared to spend it at USF1.
This has been discussed before. Chicken and egg. Chad Hurley is doing what any reasonable businessman would do - he is looking at the vibes he is getting and looking at actual progress. As far as he can see zero progress has been made relative to what's required, and that's exactly what we've seen throughout this whole thread. I don't know how many more pictures you can take of incomplete, black composite tubs - which could just be mock-ups anyway.
I do not agree with your view there. Until Xmas USF1 seem to have made reasonable technical progress. Then rumors of financial trouble fanned by Bernie Ecclestone kept being repeated. That is a sure fire way to ruin a business that may be under financed or in liquidity problems. This is exactly how Kirch was killed off when the head of Deutsche Bank publicly doubted his credit worthiness. As previously said it would have been a question of spending the same kind of money he is looking at now to get the team functional. At least that is what an outsider can figure. I'm sure sooner or later the whole story will emerge but to me it really looks like an under financed venture killed by the first liquidity crisis that hit. That is simply not consistent with an international corporation seriously looking to promote a global brand by an F1 title sponsorship. If you want to do that you know that you are not getting it under 30 mil $. Hurley should decide what he wants. Spend 5 or 10 mil seed money or do a proper campaign.
Formula One's fundamental ethos is about success coming to those with the most ingenious engineering and best ..............................organization, not to those with the biggest budget. (Dave Richards)
) it's not hard to believe that Hurly wants to keep his money as far away as possible from peterandken. But then Campos isn't exactly the most efficient organisation either given the fact that their participation has been questioned for awhile now. The only benefit I can see is getting a cheap(er) sponsorship deal taking advantage of the uncertainty surrounding the new team (like Virgin did last year, but that's a different story).
) is a very tough task. I think Super Aguri started with, at least, a 4-year-old Arrows, complete with Honda support. That's already a significant difference. Not sure how Minardi started, though, but that would be ages ago and these are times when F1 cars are getting more and more complex and require a lot of modern day technology to design, build, and race.
