Haas - American team in F1

[MercedesAMGSpy]

It's very clever indeed. The F1 world is very tough, so a good relationship with a team like Ferrari can definitely help them.

[countersteer]

Gene Haas tabs NASCAR veteran Matt Borland to help lead new F1 team

When Gene Haas went looking for personnel to staff his new Formula One team, set to debut in 2016, he didn’t have to look far for one very key individual.

Haas literally had to take just a few steps out of his office and down the hall to find the first vice-president of special projects for his new team, namely, veteran NASCAR crew chief and engineer, Matt Borland, according to a report by Motorsport.com.

“Formula One is certainly a lot more technical and I think Borland is looking for the challenge,” Haas told Motorsport.com.

Plus, Borland, 43, will have more than a year to make sure everything is in the right place when Haas’ F1 team – the only one to be based in the United States – hits the racetrack in 2016.

“It’s going to give us an opportunity to take some of our NASCAR crew people and say, ‘Hey, here’s an opportunity to learn something new, can you apply that to Formula One and vice versa?’ Haas said. “The Formula One people from Ferrari are also interested in how we do things.”

In a sense, Borland, who has spent the last seven seasons working for Haas, is going back to his first love of open-wheel racing.

A native of suburban Detroit, Borland first made his mark in the IndyCar world in the 1990s, working in engineering and simulation roles, as well as briefly serving as race engineer for driver Mark Blundell.

Borland moved to Team Penske in 1999 to work in engineering and simulation on the Sprint Cup side and eventually became Ryan Newman’s first crew chief in the Cup series.

For five seasons, Newman and Borland combined for 12 wins, 37 poles, 54 top-five and 83 top-10 finishes. They also finished in the top-10 in the Cup standings in the first four of their five-year run together.

Borland left Penske Racing after the 2006 season, had a brief stint at Michael Waltrip Racing before joining Haas’ then-fledgling Haas/CNC Racing organization in 2007.

He and Newman were reunited in a driver-crew chief role in 2013, Newman’s final season with SHR, resulting in a win in the Brickyard 400 and Newman becoming the sole representative of SHR to make the Chase for the Sprint Cup (finished 11th).

“He knows how to get things started, and he knows how to put people together,” Newman said of Borland. “He did the exact same thing last year with a team that took us to a Brickyard 400 trophy.

“He is the guy I would want if I was doing that to do that. He’s very hands-on and knows how to do everything. At the same time, it’s a huge task so I hope he has some good people around him.”


http://motorsportstalk.nbcsports.com/20 ... w-f1-team/

[xpensive]

I still believe this is a cost-free marketing ploy by Gene Haas, why would he want to engage in a now totally chaotic F1,
where nobody even knows what 2015 will look like, let alone 2016? It could be three-car teams or hotted-up GP2 cars.

[Töm87]

Is Haas still planning to build the car in the US? Or do they have some factory in England like everybody else?

[marcush.]

Haas is not going to build their own car.the plan is to run customer Ferraris at least that´s how i understand them .

[xpensive]

Haas is not going to build their own car.the plan is to run customer Ferraris at least that´s how i understand them .

If Gene Haas is really serious about competing, something which I still doubt, that would be the only reasonable assumption,
as building up our own design- and production facilities to Formula 1 standard in the US would cost an arm, a leg and then some.

[MercedesAMGSpy]

He will buy as much as Ferrari parts as he can within the rules, Haas admitted on Sky. And why not? Trying to design your own car like Caterham/Marussia did? Not a chance.

[bhall II]

...

No, I understood it very well, and I've shown you that if Haas does indeed tackle his F1 team with American efficiency as you have chosen to define it, then the team should do pretty well relative to its competitors.

Frankly, and with all due respect, I think your criticism is bullshit handwaving. Every word of it.

You can point to quotes and make apples-and-oranges comparisons all day, but none of that matters. What matters is this:

The team's shop is already built.



Haas owns what is widely considered to be the best rolling-road wind tunnel in the world, one regularly used by Formula One teams.



Haas has top-tier racing experience, a contract with the most storied marque in F1 history to provide both materials and expertise, and healthy backing from a $1,000,000,000/year company, not to mention personnel who are very good at finding money.

It's one thing to be skeptical, but to ignore actions in favor of cherry-picked statements is just plain foolish.

And for what it's worth: this team's country of origin has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that it is in by far the best position of any new F1 entrant for a long, long time. When Haas mentions America, he's marketing the team to a potential fanbase that tends to expect that angle, especially when it comes to international competitions.

[xpensive]

So, all it takes now is for Gene Haas to be foolish enough to start wasting megabucks on a future Formula 1 of an unknown format?

I think he's a tad smarter than that, besides, he can always change the sign on that building.

[strad]

deleted post

Always devolves into the same crap.

[bill shoe]

, etc. etc.

I don't get why you spend so many words hating a team that will not start racing until two seasons from now!

Is there really nothing going on in F1 currently for you to criticize? You have to reach two calendar years into the future and criticize what you speculate Haas F1 will be?

I think this makes me a hater hater. But I won't put much effort into it until 2016.

[countersteer]

Always devolves into the same crap.

It certainly appears so. Sit tight.. it will get worse. A lot worse.

By the way, Kevin Harvick, driving for Stewart-Haas, won the championship today.

[thisisatest]

Meanwhile you provide us with an article about some windtunnel that supposedly was used by F1 back in 2010,...whilst by now, F1 changed completely. The only mention of that facility ever been used by F1 teams is in 2008 [so say their own website] and they dont even name the team due to privacy. Hell, you speak in the plural form yet their own website only states a single F1 team using their windtunnel.

Lotus opted to ditch four days of straight line testing and take their E20 to the USA for testing in the state-of-the-art 290 km/h Windshear wind tunnel which the team’s technical director James Allison believes is more useful for the team.

i dont have an opinion about Haas either way, just thought id correct that.

quote from GrandPrix247, but i recall it being posted just about everywhere back then.

[PlatinumZealot]

Has can easily do better than HRT, Marrussia and Caterham by simply Hiring good People from F1. I don't think he is foolish enough to even have more than 20% of his staff being NASCAR people. And don't get me wrong, NASCAR people aren't idiots. They can get a car on the track and that is the key thing.

[Richard]

Oh dear the trolls are out again. I've booted the posts, please report any others.