Haas - American team in F1

[FW17]

Any GP2 champion or WSR3.5 champion, put them in Andretti or Penske or Ganassi and they will be nowhere near the regular drivers. American series drivers are just as underestimated as American engineering.

Wonder why Bourdais, Barrichello, Sato are all not winning championships stateside. Also dont think any of the current champions driving can do a Mansel (Alonso Maybe)

[marcush.]

Any GP2 champion or WSR3.5 champion, put them in Andretti or Penske or Ganassi and they will be nowhere near the regular drivers. American series drivers are just as underestimated as American engineering.

Wonder why Bourdais, Barrichello, Sato are all not winning championships stateside. Also dont think any of the current champions driving can do a Mansel (Alonso Maybe)

you remember that Bourdais is the perfect example of a stateside hero who went nowhere in formula 1 against Vettel ?
You remember Zanardi who went nowhere in formula 1 was literrally wiping the floor with the american heros in CART..

[cossie]

right now there really isn't any driver that is in the Indy car series that would be an F1 deserving driver, and yes your going to hear from Mario that Marco deserves a shot, but no, same with Rahall. However there is Rossi and maybe Conner Daly, and then we will hear from the pay driver's. I do believe that Haas will make a go of it, and this isn't just some half ass effort and that he more than likely has some sponsorship in the wings. I am disappointed that he going with Dallara, with Panoz just south, however Dallara now has a shop in Indiana, so most of the car can be made there

[MercedesAMGSpy]

right now there really isn't any driver that is in the Indy car series that would be an F1 deserving driver, and yes your going to hear from Mario that Marco deserves a shot, but no, same with Rahall. However there is Rossi and maybe Conner Daly, and then we will hear from the pay driver's. I do believe that Haas will make a go of it, and this isn't just some half ass effort and that he more than likely has some sponsorship in the wings. I am disappointed that he going with Dallara, with Panoz just south, however Dallara now has a shop in Indiana, so most of the car can be made there

I watched GP2 and Rossi isn't good enough imo. Heard good stories about Conor Daly though.

[cossie]

American open wheel racing is just a joke right now IMO, no direction, really no ladder series, thanks Tony G. Rossi at least has made the commitment to stay in Europe and try to make a go of it,

[MercedesAMGSpy]

American open wheel racing is just a joke right now IMO, no direction, really no ladder series, thanks Tony G. Rossi at least has made the commitment to stay in Europe and try to make a go of it,

It's a nice guy, but he isn't a top driver and GP2 has a pay drivers field these days. The big talents go to WSR 3.5.

[cossie]

Haas is going to be tested trying to find a veteran F1 driver, I'd rather see Rossi than any Indy driver, that's how bleak the talent & future of Indy car is,

[MercedesAMGSpy]

Haas is going to be tested trying to find a veteran F1 driver, I'd rather see Rossi than any Indy driver, that's how bleak the talent & future of Indy car is,

What's wrong with Will Power or Hunter Ray? I think it isn't that bad in US. In F1 we have Chilton, Gutierrez, Maldonado (money, money, money) so that isn't a very high standard.

[cossie]

No , I really do not see anyone capable of making the move from Indy to F1, I about hit the floor when I read that people wanted Danica

[lebesset]

Any GP2 champion or WSR3.5 champion, put them in Andretti or Penske or Ganassi and they will be nowhere near the regular drivers. American series drivers are just as underestimated as American engineering.

Wonder why Bourdais, Barrichello, Sato are all not winning championships stateside. Also dont think any of the current champions driving can do a Mansel (Alonso Maybe)

can't do a mansell ? hamilton would eat them alive
and bordais won 4 indy championships in a row ....and was uncompetitive in F1 , as was sato ; barico was a number 2 driver

[NathanOlder]

Danica would just be for publicity, and it would work.

Am I right in thinking, Since "OUR" Nige, won the Cart championship in 1993, an American Driver has only won the series 3 times in 21 years. Al Unser Jr 94, Jimmy Vasser in 96, and then a very long time until Ryan Hunter-Reay in 2012.
(I haven't counted the Indy Racing Leage that ran from 96-07. )

Does this not show that American drivers are not up to standard in single seater racing.
No one can touch them in NASCAR, just not so good in the single seaters.

Even Mark Blundell had a good run in IndyCar in 97, won a few races

[Richard]

Lets face it, top level motorsports has been getting more and more specialist and that will mean successful drivers are likely to be specialist too. Add in the strong cultural divide between US and FIA variants and the likelihood of transition is very limited. So fewer and fewer drivers or engineers will be likely to consider the transition. Also if you are a success in one why risk failure in the other? So it's hard to meaningfully consider driver comparisons, simply because the successful drivers don't swap like they used to in the 60's.

Anyway, don't forget the mantra of this site that its a universal truth that driver comparisons are futile.

As for Haas, his PR does sound arrogant, lets look at the cold facts. We have seen that success can be purchased, ie Red Bull or Mercedes. They bought in all the expertise possible and resolutely stuck to traditional routes in Milton Keynes and Brackley. Even that took 5 years to hit the front row.

In contrast Haas seems to be advocating building from the ground up. IMHO that underestimates the value of F1 specific expertise and experience. I'd say the same if Red Bull announced they were going to conquer NASCAR with a team based in Milton Keynes built from scratch.

[MercedesAMGSpy]

Lets face it, top level motorsports has been getting more and more specialist and that will mean successful drivers are likely to be specialist too. Add in the strong cultural divide between US and FIA variants and the likelihood of transition is very limited. So fewer and fewer drivers or engineers will be likely to consider the transition. Also if you are a success in one why risk failure in the other? So it's hard to meaningfully consider driver comparisons, simply because the successful drivers don't swap like they used to in the 60's.

Anyway, don't forget the mantra of this site that its a universal truth that driver comparisons are futile.

As for Haas, his PR does sound arrogant, lets look at the cold facts. We have seen that success can be purchased, ie Red Bull or Mercedes. They bought in all the expertise possible and resolutely stuck to traditional routes in Milton Keynes and Brackley. Even that took 5 years to hit the front row.

In contrast Haas seems to be advocating building from the ground up. IMHO that underestimates the value of F1 specific expertise and experience. I'd say the same if Red Bull announced they were going to conquer NASCAR with a team based in Milton Keynes built from scratch.

Good point, but HAAS need at least one American F1 driver (marketing), so then you have to pick one of the two GP2 boys or Indycar drivers.

[strad]

Why is any confidence by Americans seen as arrogant?
If a Brit of a Frenchman were to say the same things it would be heard differently. imo

[bhall]

[...]

As for Haas, his PR does sound arrogant, lets look at the cold facts. We have seen that success can be purchased, ie Red Bull or Mercedes. They bought in all the expertise possible and resolutely stuck to traditional routes in Milton Keynes and Brackley. Even that took 5 years to hit the front row.

In contrast Haas seems to be advocating building from the ground up. IMHO that underestimates the value of F1 specific expertise and experience. I'd say the same if Red Bull announced they were going to conquer NASCAR with a team based in Milton Keynes built from scratch.

I don't think you can rely on summaries published by the specialized press, because it appears that those doing the summarizing are having a field day with this.

Guenther Steiner, team principal (and, incidentally, former technical director for Red Bull Racing, yes, that Red Bull Racing): "Obviously, we have looked into [buying an existing facility in England], but then again you go back, you're not an American team, and the inhabitants, we didn't want to take that route. So we decided or made up a plan that we do it ourselves, but not completely on our own. We'll have partners which we will work in Europe with. But to buy a current team, it didn't fit what we wanted to do because it needs to be the base needs to be the United States."

Haas: "We're going to do something very similar that we did in NASCAR which is to try to partner say like with a Hendrick Motorsports where we can rely on them for a lot of the technical expertise. Because, let's face it, we're new at this. There is going to be a long learning curve, and to sit there and say we can understand what's going on with these cars in a year or two is not reasonable. It's going to take us a while to learn, and we'll lean heavily on a technical partner to help us."

[...]

"Well, we have an office in Brussels that we use for Haas Automation, and that facility is available. I don't know if it logistically makes any sense. So those are the things that we're going to have to figure out. But ideally, going forward, the main office for the Formula 1 would be here in Kannapolis, and maybe a smaller office somewhere in either Germany or Italy for assembly and disassembly of cars. It also would depend upon who our technology partner ultimately is. So that would be the logistics that we'd use.

Like I say, nothing's cast in stone, so we're going to be flexible about it. We're going to do what it takes, and we're going to be efficient at it. Those are really the only parameters that we have."

[...]

"We're going to lean as heavily as we can on partners. Our job is not to reinvent the wheel. Our job is to race cars and win races. So the reinventing technology maybe that somebody else has that we can purchase is probably more of what our strategy will be. Don't exactly have the numbers, but the numbers I've seen are reasonable, and, yes, it's expensive, but I think that we're going to have our own way of doing things. Too many teams I think just go out there and throw money at it where we won't be doing that. We're not going to be throwing money at it."

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