USF1 -- F1's All-American Challenger

[MattF1]

No problem.

Can't wait to find out more about the team.

[Deerfield805]

Conor Daly?

[xpensive]

If this USF1 was serious, if they had the funding in place and if Windsor and Anderson were the right people to run an F1 team, surely it would be helluva lot easier just to buy the ex-Honda outfit in Brackley for a dollar and get on with it?

Those ideas about Charlotte and so on are just childish at best. In the past, Roger Penske, Parnelli Jones and Carl Haas all realized that having an F1 base in the US made very little sense. Engines, gearboxes and every thinkable sub-contractor is already in Europe anyway and hey, is there even an IRL-car designed and built in the US today?

[Conceptual]

If this USF1 was serious, if they had the funding in place and if Windsor and Anderson were the right people to run an F1 team, surely it would be helluva lot easier just to buy the ex-Honda outfit in Brackley for a dollar and get on with it?

Those ideas about Charlotte and so on are just childish at best. In the past, Roger Penske, Parnelli Jones and Carl Haas all realized that having an F1 base in the US made very little sense. Engines, gearboxes and every thinkable sub-contractor is already in Europe anyway and hey, is there even an IRL-car designed and built in the US today?

I believe the entire point of this is an exercize to capitalize on the cost cutting that will be in place for 2010, including the testing ban during the season. They want an all-american team (although that negates Windsor...) and they want a european base in Spain.

And why buy Honda when you can start from scratch, and bring in fresh blood? Maybe USF1 thinks it will be better to beat the Honda team on track, than buy it and finish last every race? I dunno...

[xpensive]

I think your question should perhaps be reversed, why start building something from scratch, in the Carolinas or Spain, when you could have existing facilities in the middle of F1-country effectively for free, involving one of the more prominent and respected Technical directors in the F1 community?
Isn't the USF1 thing just a sticker anyway?

[Miguel]

I think your question should perhaps be reversed, why start building something from scratch, in the Carolinas or Spain, when you could have existing facilities in the middle of F1-country effectively for free, involving one of the more prominent and respected Technical directors in the F1 community?
Isn't the USF1 thing just a sticker anyway?

You wouldn't really need to build the facilites in Spain. Although the facilites at Brackley are most probably much better, the Epsilon Euskadi facilites are responsible of a World Series by Renault team, some more lower category cars and are responsible also of a Le Mans LMP1 built from scratch there. And, as Villadeprat said, by sheer luck their wind tunnel is just as big as the new regulations will allow.

As a (political) side note, although I'm 99.99% sure there wouldn't be any issues with USF1 team using Epsilon Euskadi's headquarters (they'd probably get a ton of good press and support from newspapers and TV) and Mondragon Unibertsitatea engineering resources, I am 100% that was this team Spain Formula 1 there would be demonstrations and probably ETA threats to the project. The argument would read something like "This is not Spain, so Spanish F1 better go back to Spain". Yes, it's sad and yes it sucks.

[jddh1]

Well, I guess if they do get Danica on board, they will certainly get a lot of press in here in the States, and perhaps world wide as well. Even ESPN is writing about USF1 now.
http://sports.espn.go.com/rpm/racing/f1 ... id=3909107

In the article, they mention they will have a "a working budget of $64 million and an aim to put two American drivers on the starting grid."

Interesting read.

[xpensive]

This is getting interesting, an American F1 team with 64 MUSD in Basque country, hope ETA approves.

[andartop]

I agree with xpensive that it would make much more sense for them to buy everything ready instead of building a whole team up from scratch. I think Toyota have already proved to the world that no matter how much money you put into it, if you don't have the right people it still won't work, not in F1. And the right people would be people who are already involved in F1, not Indy, not Nascar, not LeMans.. F1 has not been in need for new teams for a long time as much as it is now, so it's definitely something worth waiting for, but I think American fans are probably still not over the 2005 fiasco, and an all-American team would surely need the fans' backing. Oh, and a better name!

[Miguel]

This is getting interesting, an American F1 team with 64 MUSD in Basque country, hope ETA approves.

Most on-topic, 64m seems quite a low budget for a team. Even with cost-cutting measures and especially since it seems this team could incur into a higher than usual logistic expense. I think Minardi used to spend a comparable amount of money. But if cost-cutting measures really allow a 64m team to be mid-grid competitive, then I'll have to think they've been successful.

Regarding the location of Epsilon Euskadi, the team is neither spanish nor french, so there won't be issues (I think).

I was going to write about the end of the sentence. Having lived there for almost my whole life, you'll understand I have strong feelings about it. However, this is not a politics forum and someone recently told me to take things more calmly over a PM. So I'll only put relevant things to the discussion here. If anybody is interested in knowing more, I'll gladly answer PM's.

[panchito401]

So, I am tooling around on my way to work this morning (sunday) and what do I hear on the sports radio? (WEEI Boston) A little F1 blurb in the news spot. Here? in the northeast of the US? They hardly mentioned the Daytona 500 all week, and rarely speak of racing at all. EVER. I thought for a second the planet had turned inside out.

What is it about? Danica Patrick driving an F1 car. The only news I have ever heard on sports radio in the United States in my 28 years is about Danica Patrick driving an F1 car. I havent visited the forum since the usf1 thing was a rumor, come to find out from ESPN that its the real deal. Not only is WEEI dropping Patricks name, but ESPN is floating it around as well.

Which leads my to my point. All of the 'mainstream' sports outlets in the US (aside from Speed) devote little to no coverage of F1 at all. You throw Patricks name in there, all the sudden theres a buzz in all these media outlets because everone knows her name. Which is great for eyeballs and dollars... and I believe will be the demise of this team. I can't name one american driver from any series stateside that i could see driving in F1. Maybe Kyle Busch. Emphasis on the Maybe. Scott Speed because he has the experience. Thats it.

If they throw Patrick in the car, or anyone else from IRL or NASCAR for that matter, it will be a disaster. I really do hope they succeed, but just throwing people in the ride because they're a familiar face is the wrong way to go about it in this game. That works in NASCAR, not it F1.

-f

[Birel99]

Danica patrick has absolutely no right to drive an F1 car!

I have talked to many people that raced with her in karts over the years and every one says the same thing. She is slow, spoiled, and has no right to have moved up and out of karts! I doubt she even has the physical stamina to complete 20 laps in an F1 car!

What USF1 needs to do is sign me to drive! Ill even do it for free

Regards,

[axle]

Danica patrick has absolutely no right to drive an F1 car!

I have talked to many people that raced with her in karts over the years and every one says the same thing. She is slow, spoiled, and has no right to have moved up and out of karts! I doubt she even has the physical stamina to complete 20 laps in an F1 car!

What USF1 needs to do is sign me to drive! Ill even do it for free

Regards,

I think she should certainly test - maybe even be the official tester..but I agree that's the most she should do. To be involved will be hype enough. Then let someone much faster race. I think Scott Speed should be included, he's got experience that precious few other drivers in the US have.

[xpensive]

So all you have to do to get the world's attention, is for two old buddies each with some remote F1 experience, to post an empty web-site and claim that if they had some money and an F1 car (which they don't), they might offer Danica Patrick a test-drive?

[monkeyboy1976]

USF1 has a challenge on its hands. Getting a front running Amercian driver in F1 will take many years. I can see this team, if it sticks with its aim of having only Amercian drivers, being at the back with Force India for at least 5 years. F1 needs a bigger grid so I'm not complaining.
Just hope that our US friends are not dissapointed when they see their team struggling to make any sort of impression from the get go.

Additional thought:
Why is it that the US cannot produce a front running F1 driver in the modern era? It's not for the lack of funding, facilities or population. Look at how Finland have done. It's not a country you would expect to produce such a wealth of talent.