Formula One has generally been a very multi-national motorsports event – teams are run like businesses and you sign up the best drivers and parts you can afford. A1 actually differentiated itself from F1 by having country-based teams, although they may like our A1 Team Malaysia be managed by foreigners. The Force India F1 team is one recent “country”-based team, though it looks like it’s only in ownership as the drivers (German Adrian Sutil and Italian Giancarlo Fisichella) and management team are all foreigners.
Here comes another new F1 team – USF1, with the tagline “Made in America”. They plan to use American drivers and American engines and chassis development. They’ve also reportedly signed up for the new Windshear wind tunnel in North Carolina for R&D. The US doesn’t even have their own F1 race (the US GP ended in 2007). Do Americans even like motorsports that aren’t in run a straight line or an oval? :P
Not much else is known about the team, but a few key people are said to be associated – Peter Windsor (uh, a sports commentator), and Ken Anderson. Those who follow F1 news may remember this news piece sometime in mid-2008 about Ken Anderson talking to Honda about setting up an American F1 team. Is this a completely new team, or a repackaged and rebranded Honda F1 Team?
Has Honda finally found a buyer for their F1 team?
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doom to fail!
right! good on the straight, poor at the corners
and i wonder if the credit crisis isnt bad enuff at home =___+
cam.shaft
For those who don’t know it, Peter Windsor isn’t just a sports commentator. He used to work for Williams in the 80s (In fact he was actually with Frank Williams when he had the accident that left him in a wheelchair). He also is a frequent contributor to F1 Racing magazine. I think he have the credentials to be involved in a new F1 Team.
right …
u will c their cars engine will from a chevy v8 block, their styling will be done by corvette, and the handling will be done by ford ..
and all the races u will c their cars jus keep banging into the wall ..
and after 3 mnths of operation , it wil be bailed out by the US government !
Team USF1 will be powered by good ol fashion push rods V8 with carburator. It will be using live axle with leaf spring, gearbox will be from a truck. instead of spoiler wings it will have bumper for NASCAR style “bumpin and rubbin”.
Seriously, US does have some long lost heritage in GrandPrix/F1 racing, remember Dan Gurney’s Eagle? With the current state of US auto industry, I doubt it is going to happen.
Scot Speed again? or maybe someone else.. hmmm
IMO some of the driver in Nascar (or perhaps any American motorsport event) r too fat & look like hell (for a professional driver)… really annoying but to think about it, they just need to floor the pedal & then enjoying their HAMBURGER until reach the chequered flag… simple… & American people love this kind of races… well, most of them..
btw, any team that can salvage the Honda Team is welcome.. the more the merrier :)
wow, already bored of silly Indycars and Nascars and wanna try F1? LMAO….
American team in F1? must be the joke of the month…..
r they joking? engine from US?
even those engines in IRL are from Mercedes, Honda and Toyota.
Americans in F1 as manufacturer with own engines n American drivers. Did I miss something here? Did I read that right or is something wrong with my eyesight? As far as I know American cars are very poor at corners. Do American race drivers even know how to handle corners? For all I see are cars over-steering/under-steering into corners n banging into walls, barriers, fences n even spectators. Yes, spectators! The irony is that Americans love that kind of racing. That explains the thousands of spectators present at every races. They all look straight ahead into corners!
they got their stupid nascar and stuff, now wanna join F1?
with their big block engine and crap ass handling. forget it.
no wait, it’ll make for good entertainment, explosions and bikini babes and such.
woohoo.
credit crisis? what credit crisis!?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Andretti
Mario Gabriele Andretti (born February 28, 1940) is an Italian American former automobile racing driver, and one of the most successful Americans in the history of the sport. He is one of only two drivers to win races in the four major motor racing categories: Formula One, IndyCar, World Sportscar Championship and NASCAR….
did i hear people saying americans cant handle F1?
at least nascar did not have a ‘ferrari love story’…
is this news legit..or is it just some news..haha.got some funny silly comments here.but id say most arent serious(just for jokes rite?)…BTW according to top gear mag..the corvette z06 is a good handler..dono lar maybe.fact is dont “always” judge a book by its cover..hehe
With a tagline “Made in America”!!?? … so arrogant…
RCM said,
February 6, 2009 @ 7:58 pm
With a tagline “Made in America”!!?? … so arrogant…
__________________________________________
thats not arrogance.. its called being proud of your country. and honestly, i think many malaysians are sadly lacking in that.
return of scott speed
Now that the Honda team became Brawn GP, who is USF1 going to look up to for inspiration?
I think all this talk about USF1 are all urban legends. First of all, where would team "Made in America" get the sponsorship money from? Ford? Oh maybe GM or Chrysler… It takes dedicated financial support for 5-10 years, pouring hundreds of millions into R&D before a new team gets anywhere. Look how many years it took for Toyota to become semi-competitive in the F1. I doubt that kind of resolve and cash could come from an American car company, or from any other American company right now.
Second, I am not sure if any American company has been building chassis for Indy or CART, but there is no engine technology in the U.S. that could be used to power an F1 car. Indy cars use Mercedes or Honda power plants. I cannot imagine some Detroit engineer designing a reliable engine that revs to 18000 RPM !
Third, most Americans simply do not care about anything that is not home grown. Most cannot find their own country on a map, how can anyone expect them to care about where Singapore, Bahrain, Kuala Lumpur, Monaco or Nurburgring are? If it ain't Mid-Ohio, Daytona or Talladega, forget it. Then the sponsorship: brands need to have wide mainstream recognition. How many mainstream American racing fans are familiar with names like Benetton, Petronas, Bitburger, Kingfisher Airlines or Vodafone? Again, if it ain't Redman Chewing Tobacco or Miller Lite, forget it.
The U.S. had a Grand Prix for several years, but it was lightly attended compared to an Indy race or a Nascar race on the same track. That should be a hint. I think, attempting to build an all-American F1 team is a lost cause. How much attention did Scottt Speed attract in his home country when he recently raced? None. Finally, there is an American team in A1 GP. How many American racing fans follow it? Not many.
Its about time the usa competes in f1. maybe then we can call it a world championship. corvette zr1 and vipers are some of the fastest production cars around corners and straits. official production car record on youtube. and they cost a third of the price. alot of tecnology in f1 comes from the states.
if they can build a f22 raptor they sure can built a f1 engine and chassis.
hope they use chevy. your rice rockets and snobs that built cars for the price of a house must wake up. and since when does the usa have no money. can you handle real power. i guess not. since your dads grew up with little minis made for girls. i would use them cars as a bath tub.
The post above, unfortunately, conveys all the ignorance Americans have about road course racing and formula cars. If team USF1 comes to the grid with this attitude, they will be in for a rude awakening. It took Toyota with all its corporate power, R&D and money some 10 years to become competitive. Let's see how long it will take an American company. If they want to use American engines, they will have to develop one from scratch because there is nothing in the U.S. presently in existence. A Chevrolet motor in an F1 car? :) A pushrod engine maybe? :) I forgot, those will not rev up to 19000 RPM…. That won't work. And Redman chewing tobacco advertising? Sorry, no tobacco sponsorship anymore. How about some moonshine whiskey?
But seriously: it is great that an American team wants to enter the sport, but they will be hopeless backmarkers for a very long time, then they will quit.
I have no doubt about the US F1 team ability to build a decent car, but not an engine that can compete with any European engine. True American drivers have competed in F1 and some like Mario Andretti (notice Italian name) very successfully, but never in an American car. Time will tell, but I'm pretty sure the whole US F1 team will end in tears, and be rather embarrassing.
Well, they have an engine now – from Cosworth. Let's see: a British engine, Peter Windsor as one of the owners/managers, I would say it is more of a U.K./U.S. team…. So much for Made in America….
Will their factory be based in the U.S.? It will make it expensive and impractical to ship cars, parts and people around, given that almost all the races are in Asia, Middle East and Europe.
Cosworth will also be supplying Lotus reviving nostalgic memories of greater days. Cosworth supplied engines to Williams last year. Williams have done much better this year with their current engine supplier Toyota.The truth is does it really matter. We all know that next years F1 will be a contest between McLaren and Ferrari. IE. Hamilton Raikkonen and Alonso and Massa. All the others with the possible exception of Red Bull if they can find an engine to replace Renault. Are just there to make up the numbers. It should be a really good season as i think Alonso really hates McLaren, and will do his best to F***k them up.
Indeed, 2010 could be an interesting season. Quite a few of the corporate giants left because of the global recession. Maybe the immediate future of F1 belongs to smaller private teams (again)?
It will be interesting to see Lotus, but just because the name is back does not imply success. Beside Team Made in America there will be 3 other new teams: Campos, Lotus and Manor Racing, all four powered by Cosworth engines. So, the field will have only 4 power plants: Mercedes, Ferrari, Cosworth and Toyota.
So, with the engine question out of the way, where will Team Made in America get the chassis? In Europe or in Japan? If they get a good sponsor, maybe they can buy the BMW/ex-Sauber team? Indy chassis are completely different. What is available in the States is unusable in F1.
Sponsorship is the next big question. With most American companies (esp. car companies) broke from the recession, it will be rather difficult to raise money. Wall Street Journal recently reported that gun sales are up in the U.S. Apparently, rednecks and conspiracy theorists fear Obama is going to confiscate guns, so they are stockpiling in their basements. Maybe Smith & Wesson can sponsor the team; that would be fitting…
American drivers have shown success in F1, but never dominated the sport. Phil Hill won the championship in a Ferrari – after his team mate died. Mario Andretti is one of the most successful drivers, but he is Italian by birth, not really American. Other people like Carroll Shelby, Bobby Rahal or Mark Donohue never really amounted to much in F1. They definitely achieved fame elsewhere, but not in F1. F1 just isn't an American sport.
As I wrote before, the average American will not be interested in following a racing series that takes place in countries he cannot find on the map, watching guys with strange names that to him sound like illegal immigrants’, in cars with exotic names he cannot see in Bumf**k, Kansas, sponsors that generally mean nothing in America like Vodafone, Petronas or Kingfisher, compete on a road course with turns left AND right… It will be difficult to find a company in America willing to pay $100 million a year to sponsor an American team competing in a sport like that.
In America (I am American), F1 is a niche sport that appeals to a relatively narrow segment of the population. In absolute numbers, America probably has more F1 fans than, say, Belgium or Austria, but not in percentage terms. And because marketing and advertising is done for the lowest common denominator, F1 will never dominate the airwaves in America. Just like soccer. Because America sucks at soccer, to justify its continued sucking it pretends that it is not interested in the sport. Americans love action and violence. They will rather watch Nascar dinosaurs or Indy cars drive around on an oval, and enjoy here and there a fiery crash a redneck in a Chevy ramming the wall and dying.
There is a question mark over Mercedes. I read that McLaren want to break the tie with Mercedes, because the German company are too dominant at McLaren. In some posts I've read on various sites on the Net. People just call McLaren Mercedes, Mercedes. Apparently Mclaren want to have a BMW engine. As BMW are leaving F1 this sounds strange, but who knows about the behind the scenes politics of F1.
Coincidently I watched a programme on Nascar yesterday. As you say it is very violent. I would put it on a par with WWF wrestling, neither is a sport.
I wonder don't Americans feel Isolated? Next year we have the worlds biggest sporting event the 2010 Football World Cup taking place in South Africa. The whole world will be watching in vast numbers. Except for the USA. Been nice chatting with you.
Regards.
WWF and NASCAR are not sports; they are circus acts. Just like WWF is all staged and acted for the amusement of the average American redneck with an IQ of 90, NASCAR is similar. The cars are racing prototypes that have nothing to do with standard production cars, but are dressed up to remotely look like them. They sport front ends looking like a Ford Taurus, Chevy etc. The average American redneck watching NASCAR gets excited because he thinks that the Lumina or Taurus he drives is somehow similar to those cars driving on the oval in front of him. The headlights on them are fake, by the way, just pieces of paper glued on the front mask… Nascar engines are 1950s engine technology (pushrod V8 carbureted engines) and the body is sheet metal on a tubular frame. All of this is anything but stock. NASCAR stands for "National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing". If people want to sit in the stands and watch heavy, under-developed dinosaurs with antiquated engines compete on an oval, be my guest, but please do not call it "stock car racing". Call it the "Redneck V8 Cup" but not stock cars.
There used to be a division of NASCAR called Trans-Am, which involved modified GT-class cars. 500-horsepower Jaguars, Mustangs and Corvettes racing on road courses, it was actually fun to watch. I am not sure if they still have it. These other divisions like Nextel Cup or pickup trucks are bull***t. They could as well race wheel barrows or ox carts as far as I care.
Anyway, the average American loves oval racing because it is inexpensive fun. He sees familiar logos like Chevy, Ford and Bud Light, rednecks just like him in the stands, confederate flags flying, maybe a few fighter jets flying over before the race starts, right between the anthem and praying over the loudspeakers. All that makes the average American redneck feel really excited and patriotic. Loud, cheap emotions.
Many Americans do follow road course racing, but it involves a completely different crowd: generally more educated folks that are into wine, art, travel and have money. No wonder you find them mostly on the East Coast and on the West Coast. On the other hand, your typical NASCAR fan is a blue-collar working guy with a mortgage, into (cheap) beer, country and western music, George Bush and that sort of thing. He typically does not give a damn about foreign countries (except when they need to be invaded), foreign languages, other cultures etc. You would find this in the heartland somewhere in Kansas, Alabama, Texas, Tennessee, etc, and when it comes to numbers, they unfortunately represent the majority of Americans. There generally are clear parallels between education, income levels, populist Republicanism and NASCAR.
There are some real world-class road circuits in America like Road Atlanta, Sears Point or Laguna Seca, where some real world-class racing takes place there. But if you compare how many people come to watch Rossi in a Moto GP race at Laguna Seca, or how many people come to see Allan McNish or Tom Kristensen in the Audi R-10 in an American LeMans race at Road Atlanta, it is a fraction of the crowd that would come to see a redneck like Dale Earnhart (dead now) drive a Chevy Lumina piece-of-s**t look-alike on an oval.
Unfortunately, this is just the way the country is. I am American, but live there only part time, with most of the time spent every year in Thailand and Europe. I abhor NASCAR and the following it attracts, as much as I detest that facet of the American society.
"Wonder don’t Americans feel Isolated? Next year we have the worlds biggest sporting event the 2010 Football World Cup taking place in South Africa. The whole world will be watching in vast numbers. Except for the USA."
Naw :) the average American Joe does not feel isolated, because he believes that "USA is No. 1" and that it is the rest of the world that needs to follow "the American way". :) Your average redneck in America will rather watch the Home Shopping Network or reruns of American Idol than turn on the world championship, but feel perfectly at peace with himself, because he does not know any better.
As for me, I will obviously watch it….
I admire how brutally honest you are about your fellow country men and woman.
Not having been to the USA I find your description rather a stereotype, but I'll have to take your word as verbatim.
Turning to this coming Sundays Brazilian GP and the F1 championship. As an ex pat Brit, I would like Jenson Button to win it to continue where Lewis Hamilton left off last year, even though I don't think Button deserves to be F1 champion. I won't be too upset if Barrichello wins his home GP. He deserves it. He should have been champion years ago except for Ferrari team orders. Anyway I think this Sundays race will decide who will be number one. I would hate it to be Vettel. Please no; not another German.
Well, now that are about 2 months from the kickoff of the 2010 season…. they will be using a British engine from Cosworth, the team is based in Spain, and has just signed up their first driver (an Argentinian). I think the original slogan "Made in America", which was BS to start with, had to be re-thought because they simply could not find the technology or the people in America to make this work….
Am an an American expat living in SE Asia….
Well team USF1 is out. They won't be on the grid in Bahrain. That is that…..
Failed before even starting. I thought that a year ago when they surfaced. American teams don't have a) the money or b) the know-how to develop an F1 car. Stay racing on dirt ovals and Nascrap.
Yes, PTAllTheBest, contrary to common belief, Americans can buid engines. In fact, we can build THE BEST of ANYTHING if we just set our minds to it. Better said, if it’s in our own best interest to do so. Specially when it comes to money. If it’sd better for us to build them here than to buy them there, we will build the best. Unfortunately, it’s usually better and cheaper for us to just buy them there.
It seems that what had been predicted in this blog before, namely that Team USF1 will be a complete failure, has happened. Autosport reported in June that “The FIA World Motor Sport Council has fined US F1 and banned the team from participating in any FIA championship as a punishment for its failure to appear in the 2010 Formula 1 season”.
The factory in South Carolina has shut and everything is over. They will not be back in 2011 or ever.