USF1 -- F1's All-American Challenger

[xpensive]

... Until Xmas USF1 seem to have made reasonable technical progress. ...

Good Lord WB, are you developing some kind of ironic humor now?

Anyone, without a US passport perhaps, should have seen the the hopelessness in this effort from a mile away.

None of those clowns had any relevant xperience whatsoever, no matter how creative they tried to be with their CV's.

For such a venture, myself teamed up with WB would have made for a far more credible pairing that those two.

[WhiteBlue]

Stefan GP .rejected but is ready so their plan worked in spite off being rejected!
Virgin -Manor .accepted (maybe as a fellow of Mr.Mosley?),but they have delivered.
Litespeed -rejected but now as Lotus shows a proper plan set into reality,so they got the nod on the second try at least.
Prodrive -nobody would argue that they know how to do this.

You forgot about Epsilon...
who
seem
to
be
fairly
well
funded.

(and someone called Lola, who I think has been around racing for a bit, too.)

Memories are short. The selection wasn't done to one simple criterion as best finance or best prior experience in F1. There was also the small issue of the FiA being in the hands of the car manufacturers which were already pulling out left right and center. So a junctim was made that new entrants had to use Cosworth and three entrants were confirmed on that basis. To me that junctim is entirely sensible and as a result we have 11 teams on the grid although we had a massive pull out of the manufacturers. That isn't a small achievement.

Also one has to remember that there is only one non Cosworth ticket left according to 2010 rules. Ferrari and Merc have exhausted their customer quota. Only Renault has one potential customer left. ProDrive's business plan was based on Merc engines. It would have collapsed anyway.

[Pup]

Anyone, without a US passport perhaps, should have seen the the hopelessness in this effort from a mile away.

No, the impending doom was quite apparent on this side of the Atlantic as well.

[marcush.]

looking up their website you have to conclude:
Hurleys task was

Hurley is committed to the financial success of US F1 and will continue to take an active role in sponsorship procurement and activation, external communications activities and enhancing exposure for US F1 Team through a variety of media-focused initiatives and campaigns.

So in fact he let them down ,not peter windsor whose role officially was:


Windsor will be responsible for team management and driver selection and development.

so if Hurley takes his money to someone else could they sue him for that?

[Pup]

Memories are short.

Not really. I'm just disappointed I had to wait an entire 26 minutes for your reply.

[WhiteBlue]

So they were supposed to start building a F1 car with 2 million dollars? And I thought the 40 million Mad-Max-Cap was insanity.

No......... They got some initial funding which Peter and Ken would have negotiated, it would have been made clear to Peter and Ken how much and the schedule and conditions and it was then up to Peter and Ken to work out how much they needed to achieve their initial goals, set up a factory and offices and get things like an engine supply. They then either talked to Chad about a release of more funds for things like engines, with suitable progress behind them, or find more sponsors - which they had well over a year to plan and months to actually do once they had a 2010 entry. This hasn't all just blown up in the last couple of months. It's called planning.

Your facts doesn't match. There was no basis for a business plan until USF1 got a FiA slot and signed the Concord. That only happened in August or September. This was exactly the point in time when they started to build their manufacturing and development facility as documented in their first video. To kick off serious spending earlier would have been madness. Four months later Bernie was spreading rumors that they were in financial trouble. Those are the facts.

[segedunum]

Totally agree with that. Something about Hurley stinks.

Stop blaming Chad Hurley. He's an investor and not a CEO or a manager. The worst thing he could possibly have done, and the worst thing any investor can do, is to micromanage. The fact that he has had to do that just shows the incompetence he's dealing with.

1. He either is a full active share holder who is involved with the business plan in which case it was seriously up to him to help Windsor get other sponsors or put up finance to reach the grid.

No. Chad would have been one investor, albeit a major one. Peter is, or was, the one running the team and it was his job to ensure he had the right finance up front and it was Ken's job to identify what was needed and to tell Peter so he could plan ahead. Shareholders and investors do not do what you describe. If something is needed then it is those running the operation that need to initiate contact.

Hurley obviously wants to play an active role as an investor and team owner in F1 or he would not continue to look for ways to use the USF1 ticket.

I cannot fathom why you want to protect Peter and Ken from the criticism they deserve. It is not Chad Hurley's job to micromanage the operation. All he's doing now is sensibly trying to realign his investment and have some chance of recouping it at a later date. Just because Peter and Ken seem to have disappeared (par for the course) and Chad is the only one who really seems to care about salvaging something then you think you can blame Chad because he seems to be more heavily involved now?

To me that suggests he really was in it in an active way but deserted the game in the middle.

I think we're way, way, way, way, way, way past the middle now given that the team is well over a year old, don't you think?

[WhiteBlue]

looking up their website you have to conclude:
Hurleys task was

Hurley is committed to the financial success of US F1 and will continue to take an active role in sponsorship procurement and activation, external communications activities and enhancing exposure for US F1 Team through a variety of media-focused initiatives and campaigns.

So in fact he let them down ,not peter windsor whose role officially was:


Windsor will be responsible for team management and driver selection and development.

so if Hurley takes his money to someone else could they sue him for that?

Now we are talking sense. I don't think that Ken and Peter can sue but the responsibilities as written out on their web site would squarely put the blame on Hurley for failure due to a cash crisis.

[Richard]

Even when all of this was plainly going on behind the scenes they then pretended everything was fine makes me think even more that it was a scam.

You are hardly going to say the wheels are off the cart if you are trying to woo sponsors? Of course they are gong to say it is all going to plan.

Three of the 4 teams relied on the hope of getting a big sponsor. Manor got Virgin, Campos and USF1 didn't.

Just consider that if Virgin had gone to USF1 or Campos then we'd being saying the same about Manor.

[marcush.]

Memories are short. The selection wasn't done to one simple criterion as best finance or best prior experience in F1. There was also the small issue of the FiA being in the hands of the car manufacturers which were already pulling out left right and center. So a junctim was made that new entrants had to use Cosworth and three entrants were confirmed on that basis. To me that junctim is entirely sensible and as a result we have 11 teams on the grid although we had a massive pull out of the manufacturers. That isn't a small achievement.

Also one has to remember that there is only one non Cosworth ticket left according to 2010 rules. Ferrari and Merc have exhausted their customer quota. Only Renault has one potential customer left. ProDrive's business plan was based on Merc engines. It would have collapsed anyway.

you can´t give a ticket because the guy says ,hey I have no money but I take whatever engine you want me to use..

First you need the money in place ,then you can start discussing the details .A sound plan how to finance this is the base of it all.given the recource cap they were working on you could easily judge if this was serious or not.

but maybe someone wanted them to fall on their face? There happened some crazy things in Windsors life before...

[segedunum]

Your facts doesn't match. There was no basis for a business plan until USF1 got a FiA slot and signed the Concord. That only happened in August or September.

Please tell me you're having a laugh? No. It happened in July when they signed the Concorde agreement. They had months and months before then to actually get a credible operation up and running beyond some office with a telephone in it. If they couldn't do that and were basing absolutely everything on having an entry for 2010 then it shows it was just a scam and the FIA should have said no immediately.

This was exactly the point in time when they started to build their manufacturing and development facility as documented in their first video. To kick off serious spending earlier would have been madness.

The facts are that Lotus and Virgin had similar very time frames (even tighter in the case of Lotus) and achieved their goals admirably, and planned months ahead long before they had a 2010 entry.

Four months later Bernie was spreading rumors that they were in financial trouble. Those are the facts.

They were in financial trouble, and no, I'm afraid it wasn't as a consequence of what Bernie said as you so desperately, desperately want to believe. The die was already cast.

I have no idea why you want to defend the obvious incompetence that has gone on here. Are you simply unable to comprehend it?

[Giblet]

To whom it may concern.

Try conversing without talking down to everyone like we are all idiots, and you know everything.

It's like fingernails on a chalkboard in here.

I am attacking posts here, no poster.

[segedunum]

Windsor will be responsible for team management and driver selection and development.

Does anybody want to hazard a guess as to what that role entails, or does no one understand that?

[WhiteBlue]

I think we're way, way, way, way, way, way past the middle now given that the team is well over a year old, don't you think?

Just read the points. USF1 was into the fourth or fifth month running as a serious operation when they came under attack from third parties interested in taking their license. Considering the responsibilities described on their web site Hurley should have stopped that cold in its tracks. Instead he took no active measures to beef up his fellow directors.

I can clearly see why Bernie would be interested to destroy USF1 and have someone else take their license. Imagine the criticism if USF1 made it to the grid and there was no US race. Bernie is desperate to hold off having a US race because it would be a zero profit race for him. He can make so much more from another Korea, India or Russian race.

[segedunum]

Just consider that if Virgin had gone to USF1 or Campos then we'd being saying the same about Manor.

The difference being that Manor are already a credible racing operation with a track record of producing cars. Lotus assembled a team of people, with a factory, that had direct experience of building Formula One cars. The lack of a sponsor might well have crippled Manor (however, it's a massive question mark just how much funding Virgin have put in), but they got their backing as a result of a credible track record. It's a huge leap to say that if USF1 got that funding then they'd still be around given what we've seen. They didn't get it because they didn't deserve it.