A look inside Team US F1

The Weekly Grapevine: A look inside Team US F1

Dieter has waxed lyrical about the team and done his best to fill out the white space, but it's hard to put a spin on an empty factory running on skeleton staff without there being any new information. Anderson and Windsor are still using lots of 'ifs' and 'whens'.

The most interesting part was at the end:

Next week, in Part II, GV will reveal the identity of the main investor and his rationale behind funding the operation, unique insights into the team's driver options, and Team US F1's inclusive approach to fans and partners, including details on the team's in-house TV production facility.

It has already been revealed to be Chad Hurley from YouTube and it will be interesting to hear what he says. A link-up between F1 and YouTube would be fantastic for both brands, especially if YouTube is allowed to display F1 copyrighted material.

I think you guys need to mentally prepare yourself for YouTube not being on the car (or being on the car and definitely not having F1 footage) since being the founder and the guy who got rich off it, is different from the company itself being involved.

The Weekly Grapevine: A look inside Team US F1

Dieter has waxed lyrical about the team and done his best to fill out the white space, but it's hard to put a spin on an empty factory running on skeleton staff without there being any new information. Anderson and Windsor are still using lots of 'ifs' and 'whens'.

The most interesting part was at the end:


It has already been revealed to be Chad Hurley from YouTube and it will be interesting to hear what he says. A link-up between F1 and YouTube would be fantastic for both brands, especially if YouTube is allowed to display F1 copyrighted material.

Not sure if you are bashing or what?

but it's hard to put a spin on an empty factory running on skeleton staff without there being any new information. Anderson and Windsor are still using lots of 'ifs' and 'whens'.

So they should have ordered and installed manufacturing equipement even before they really needed it?
And even before they had certainty about what was going to happen with F1.

I think US F1 has taken a very A sensible approach.
The priority is to design the car first.
You don't need manufacturing facilities for that. That's for later.

They're supposed to be racing in 6 months. They seem to be putting marketing to the US so far ahead of their competitive objectives and people criticise manufacturers like BMW and Toyota for getting their priorities all wrong?!

I remain to be convinced that this is going to work, this project. And I really hope for them that they are better than woeful, come Melbourne.

I dont know folks....of the two men Ken Anderson seems to have the most technical experience... but hasn't been involved in F1 since the late 90s.
Windsor... is just a paddock insider... should be good for marketing and PR.... but I don't see a Ross Brawn, Newey, Ascanelli type of guy operating there...

When BAR came in, at least they came with Reynard and took over the Tyrell operations... But these guys... building a factory from scratch...
When Stewart Grand Prix was started, there was Jackie who had a lot of experience and Paul Stewart who had already established a well running F3000 and F3 operations..

These guys... Windsor / Anderson have never run a team in their entire life.



**********************
PEOPLE: PETER WINDSOR

Name: Peter Windsor
Nationality: Great Britain

Peter Windsor

Peter Windsor

© Inside F1, Inc.

Born in Britain but brought up in Australia in the 1960s, Windsor became a passionate Formula 1 fan thanks to the annual Tasman Series races. In 1975 he returned to Britain to become a motorsport journalist and became a regular Formula 1 reporter and Sports Editor of the weekly magazine Autocar. In 1985, however, he was offered a job by Frank Williams and became manager of sponsorship and public affairs at Williams for the next four seasons.

Windsor had ambitions of owning a team of his own and in league with the golfer Greg Norman he tried to buy the Brabham team in 1989. The sale ended up in the law courts with Windsor seeking damages after the sale fell through at the last minute. He was later awarded over $2m.

During his time at Williams Windsor had become a close friend of driver Nigel Mansell and the connection proved to be useful when Windsor was appointed head of Ferrari's Guildford Technical Office in 1990. This organization had been set up by Ferrari in Britain to produce parts for the Italian team. In 1991 Mansell went back to Williams and Windsor soon followed, taking on the role of team manager.

It was probably inevitable that when Mansell quit Williams at the end of 1992, having just won the World Championship, Windsor left as well and he went to live for a while in the United States of America, where Mansell was racing. The following year he began work to establish a new F1 team in partnership with Japanese Tetsu Ikuzawa but there was not enough money behind the project and so Windsor turned his attention to driver management and property. He looked after the career of rising Portuguese star Andre Couto, started writing again and did some TV work with Star TV in Hong Kong.

At the start of 1998 Peter was offered a job as part of the Fox Television Formula 1 commentary team and so found himself back in the F1 press room 13 years after he left it.



***********************
PEOPLE: KEN ANDERSON

Name: Ken Anderson
Nationality: United States of America

Stefan Johansson, French GP 1988

Stefan Johansson, French GP 1988

© The Cahier Archive

Ken Anderson grew up in the rough-and-tumble world of motocross in the United States and ended up working with the Fox Racing Shox company in California, designing shock absorbers. A friend from motocross days was Roger Mears, Rick Mears's brother and when Roger tried his hand at Indycar racing in 1982 he asked Anderson to design some shock absorbers for him and through Mears he met team boss Roger Penske. In 1984 Penske hifred him to work for his CART team. In the years that followed he designed Penske shock absorbers and established Penske Racing Shocks, Inc. He was race engineer for Rick Mears between 1985 and 1988 and became the team's chief engineer. He also did suspension work for Williams as part of a deal which Penske had to use the Williams windtunnel.

This led to Anderson being hired by Ligier in 1988 as the team's technical director. The resulting JS33 was a rather better car than its predecessor and in Canada Rene Arnoux managed to finish fifth. This led to a job for Anderson at Onyx Grand Prix Engineering, where he began working with Stefan Johansson. After the team collapsed Anderson went back to the US and became technical director of Chip Ganassi Racing, working with Eddie Cheever and Robbie Gordon. He also set up Chip Ganassi Racing Ltd. in England which would later become G Force Precision Engineering. He followed Gordon to AJ Foyt Racing in 1993 and then went to rejoin Johansson at Bettenhausen before being involved in formulating the rules for the new Indy Racing League. Working for Bradley Motorsports he then helped Buzz Calkins to win the first IRL title (which he shared with Scott Sharp). In 1996 he designed the first G Force IRL car and in 1997 the car won the Indianapolis 500 in the hands of Arie Luyendyk. He continued to engineer cars for Gordon in 1997 and 1998, while also designing an offroad truck for Toyota for Gordon to drive in Baja races. The link with Toyota led to design work with Dan Gurney's All American Racers in CART. He maintained his links with G Force and designed the 2000 IRL car for the company and when Michael Kranefuss decided to set up a chassis business in 2002 he asked Anderson to be the technical head the Falcon company. That project was, however, short-lived and in 2003 Anderson moved to NASCAR as technical director of Haas CNC Racing.

In 2008 he re-emerged as the head of a planned USF1 team.

One thing... Ive never been a great fan of this team and have always doubted whether it will happen or not but on the case of no resources, I thought the plan of USF1 was to simply outsource EVERYTHING.

Ie, pay Penske to make the chassis, pay Ganassi to run the shaker-rig tests? Pay for so-and-so's windtunnel. I believed it was that type of operation? The design was done in house, than they simply handed the designs over to the relevant people. This was a complete utter guess from the various workds Peter has spoken over the last few months, so I am probably waaaaaaaaaay off.

A link-up between F1 and YouTube would be fantastic for both brands, especially if YouTube is allowed to display F1 copyrighted material.

This isn't how F1 broadcasting works.

YouTube is a broadcast medium, like a TV station on the internet.

A vehicle for video clips to be watched around the world.

Formula One Management make their money by licencing the rights to broadcast F1 in different territories around the world.

So, for example, each rights holder in each European country pays separately for the rights.

Even though a lot of english speaking countries take the BBC commentary feed, each has to pay FOM for the F1 rights.

These deals cost many many millions of dollars.

Why then would FOM undermine this by offering F1 copyrighted material for free on YouTube?

They'd be putting a gun to the head of the sport's primary source of revenue.

Won't happen.

The reason F1 clips are pulled off YouTube so fast is because they an illegal breach of the broadcast rights TV stations pay so much money for.

Edited by potmotr, 14 August 2009 - 10:53.

I don't think YouTube will bother putting Formula One movies on their network more than what it is now. Rathr they willplace You Tube on everywhere where they could not placed. It should be like a cigarette, they will try to make us slave of You Tube and as Formula One Fan is already cought up by their passion on sport will be the best target to bite into. There will be more and more sex, accident and sensation on Youtube that itself makes the audience range of youtube bigger than any other concurency... Yes YouTube to go for sensation Formula One is just a image....

But YouTube still doesn't make any money.

I think it will have to follow a the pay model Rupert Murdoch is about to bring in for all the News Corp sites.

Micropayments anyone?

One thing... Ive never been a great fan of this team and have always doubted whether it will happen or not but on the case of no resources, I thought the plan of USF1 was to simply outsource EVERYTHING.

Ie, pay Penske to make the chassis, pay Ganassi to run the shaker-rig tests? Pay for so-and-so's windtunnel. I believed it was that type of operation? The design was done in house, than they simply handed the designs over to the relevant people. This was a complete utter guess from the various workds Peter has spoken over the last few months, so I am probably waaaaaaaaaay off.

if they would work in that way bringing parts to the track would be slowed down... mclaren is being praised for its capacity to manufacture new designs and bring parts to the track asap. that shows that the internal processes research --> design --> manufacturing are almost seamlessly integrated.

we hear teams all the time talking about the "rate of development" which is so important...

if they are now installing the factory will they have enough time to test the internal processes... i remember when geoff willis got to red bull his initial take was that internal production processes were that high standard resulting in unreliable parts.... and the red bull operation was the jaguar (previously stewart)

i dont know but i got some real doubts about this team.

Having now read that piece this thread is about, I have to say I don't believe USF1 has the slightest chance of making it into F1 next season.

Sounds like they've got a skeleton staff, a pHD graduate looking after some of the design, someone waving a mouse around working on liveries and not much else.

Race team? We'll sort that out when the season ends. Which is in November?

European base? Oh yeah, we'll also have an apartment building where the drivers, staff and executives will live together during the european season.

Pie. In. The. Sky.

USF1 has said from the beginning that they're not gonna do everything the conventional way, as they see a lot of waste going on in F1.

Of course, when people start to hear the details of what that entails, people are going to start shaking their heads(especially those who would like to see the team fail).

Looks like another Autosport-style over-optimistic pre-season story about driver X or team Y. Maybe I am too pessimistic and USF1 will become a solid operation like Force India or Toro Rosso. But now it seems more like Life Racing Engines. Or even worse. You can hire some actors and some computers and act "Let's have a F1 team" spectacle in old production hall to boost media hype.
If team boss without staff and car talks about renewing the floor as the first task then how on earth can you take him seriously?

If it was as bad as all that, would FiA / FOTA accepted their entrance and signature? Maybe all that's wrong is their PR now, making it all look a bit amatuerish cut and paste motorsport. I'm sure in reality it can't be.

If it was as bad as all that, should FiA / FOTA accepted their entrance and signature? ...

Fixed that for you!

Its hard to tell the difference at this stage between a 'virtual' team and a vaporware pipedream.
More info needed. (If there is actually anything to know!)

If it was as bad as all that, would FiA / FOTA accepted their entrance and signature? Maybe all that's wrong is their PR now, making it all look a bit amatuerish cut and paste motorsport. I'm sure in reality it can't be.

IIRC FIA only looked to their papers. Everybody knows Bernie wants US team and Max does what Bernie wants.

It's been so long since anyone set up a fully fledged F1 team without either a huge pile of cash (Super Aguri took some major short cuts courtesy of Honda) I'm not sure anyone is in a position to judge if USGPE are ahead or behind in what they need to do.

How much of the design of a 2-3 second off the pace F1 car is common knowledge and a task that any competent race car designer can do?

The common view is that the current F1 teams pour millions into the design to pick up the last few tenths and have very organised well drilled race, manufacturing and design teams.

Is it reliability through inexperience that will be the problem or 'secret' knowledge of how to build even a barely competitive F1 car that means you need to buy into an existing team or at the very least poach a bunch of experienced staff.

Clearly the FIA don't think this sort of thing is an issue (if they did then Epsilon Euskadi and Prodrive would have been much higher on the list as they have both designed, built and raced cars in the highest levels of motorsport.)

Epsilon Euskadi and Prodrive would have been much higher on the list as they have both designed, built and raced cars in the highest levels of motorsport.

Quite.
The fact that USF1 was chosen over these must mean there is something good about the operation.

Having now read that piece this thread is about, I have to say I don't believe USF1 has the slightest chance of making it into F1 next season.

Sounds like they've got a skeleton staff, a pHD graduate looking after some of the design, someone waving a mouse around working on liveries and not much else.

Race team? We'll sort that out when the season ends. Which is in November?

European base? Oh yeah, we'll also have an apartment building where the drivers, staff and executives will live together during the european season.

Pie. In. The. Sky.

From wiki


In October 2006, Google Inc. announced that it had acquired YouTube for US$1.65 billion in Google stock, and the deal was finalized on November 13, 2006.[22] Google does not provide detailed figures for YouTube's running costs, and YouTube's revenues in 2007 were noted as "not material" in a regulatory filing.[18] In June 2008 a Forbes magazine article projected the 2008 revenue at US$200 million, noting progress in advertising sales.[23]
In November 2008, YouTube reached an agreement with MGM, Lions Gate Entertainment and CBS which will allow the companies to post full-length films and television shows on the site, accompanied by advertisements. The move is intended to create competition with websites such as Hulu, which features material from NBC, Fox, and Disney.[24][25]

So TV plus ads makes USD200 mil revenue...

Woops the Link, sorry.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTube

So TV plus ads makes USD200 mil revenue...

Also from wikipedia the bandwidth costs alone in 2008 are estimated at $1m a day! The Guardian have two quotes one from Credit Suisse of a loss of $470.6m the other from RampRate at $174.2m. That's still a long way from profitable even with $200m in revenue.

details on the team's in-house TV production facility.

Hmmmm..
Jp is rather curious about THAT
jP

Youtube is about more than making a profit, in the long term, they will make money but for now, they have the biggest advertising platform in the world.

There's advertising in Youtube?

On the subject of TV production facility, lets not let this kind of talk blow our hair back.

20 years ago building such a facility would be a big deal.

These days one person could build and run it at the minimum of expense, certainly less than £20,000.

They'd be looking at getting a few fixed cameras within their factory, plus a Sony P2 for shooting features, a bit of sound gear, a mixing desk and an edit suite using Final Cut or Avid or similar.

The clips they produce can be distributed free to broadcasters and websites via FTP.

Most love that kind of free content, if it produced to passable quality, especially newspaper websites.

The facility will no doubt also have the facility for live links if desired.

Most trading rooms at banks in london have similar facilities.

USF1 is hardly reinventing the wheel.

The old Honda Racing F1 website used to produce that kind of web TV all the time, to a very high standard.

McLaren also produce web TV.

Edited by potmotr, 15 August 2009 - 12:13.

We've got that stuff at work.

We've got that stuff at work.

Exactly.

So Windsor's talk of 'TV production facility' is all hot air.

Sounds like he's going to recreate Universal Studios at the USF1 factory.

When really they'll be putting in place which most teams already have.

shouldnt they put every dime in car development, preparation and performance?

shouldnt they put every dime in car development, preparation and performance?

I think having the ability to produce videoclips which can be streamed online and distributed to media organisations is a valuable marketing tool, so is worth employing a producer to do so.

But I don't think we should be impressed by Windsor's talk of a revolutionary new way of broadcasting F1 to the world, with a factory full of cameras.

IMO this won't be the Big Brother house, it'll be pretty standard TV production facility.

FFS, having a DV camcorder and a Mac which comes with iMovie bundled could be called "a video production facility for internet videoclips".

That is not rocket science.
And its a long way short of being an F1 constructor.



Personally, I don't expect to see two USF1 cars on the grid for next year's British GP at Donington.
Bridging the gap between the dream and the reality is the hard bit.

How long would we have to wait before a failure to show anything tangible would make things certain?

I don't expect to see any F1 cars at Donington.

I don't expect to see any F1 cars at Donington.

Dont you get it yet?

David Copperfield is the true puppet master at work here.

The secret we are all waiting for is not going to be seen doing preseaon testing.

At FP1 Copperfield is going to have a Youtube video sponsored by BestBuy where in Australia he goes, Viola!

And USF1 speeds out to practice.

Honestly,

Designed by Anderson, built by Penske, tested by Ginassi, raced by.............

Here we go.

I am an American, so Im still interested in having a US F1 team, this joke isnt what I imagined.

nevertheless, lets go Windor and Ken!!!!!

I think most of us would love to see a functional, competitive American team in F1.

This isn't how F1 broadcasting works.

YouTube is a broadcast medium, like a TV station on the internet.

A vehicle for video clips to be watched around the world.

Formula One Management make their money by licencing the rights to broadcast F1 in different territories around the world.

So, for example, each rights holder in each European country pays separately for the rights.

Even though a lot of english speaking countries take the BBC commentary feed, each has to pay FOM for the F1 rights.

These deals cost many many millions of dollars.

Why then would FOM undermine this by offering F1 copyrighted material for free on YouTube?

They'd be putting a gun to the head of the sport's primary source of revenue.

Won't happen.

The reason F1 clips are pulled off YouTube so fast is because they an illegal breach of the broadcast rights TV stations pay so much money for.

Unless you live in China of course. It's ironic here that Youtube is blocked but I watch all the F1 full length races or qualy as well as other major race sports such as WRC through internet here - a Chinese site. Probably has subliminal messages inserted, after each race I feel like saying 'capitalistic pigs' a lot.

Anyone who needs the link PM me.

Edited by cheapracer, 16 August 2009 - 05:12.

I think most of us would love to see a functional, competitive American team in F1.

Yup.

Must be weird for them to compete in a "World Championship" and actually have to leave the States though!

Windsor / Anderson have never run a team in their entire life.

In 1991 Mansell went back to Williams and Windsor soon followed, taking on the role of team manager.

You would think that the team manager would run the team!

Now let's say Windor ran the race team... liasing parts with factory, managing race engineers & race drivers. Exactly the things that USF1 critics say they don't have. Since they already have the car design under control, then the race day operation is not an issue either...

You would think that the team manager would run the team!

Now let's say Windor ran the race team... liasing parts with factory, managing race engineers & race drivers. Exactly the things that USF1 critics say they don't have. Since they already have the car design under control, then the race day operation is not an issue either...

Windsor will make a fine F1 manager in the style of Nick Fry but who will be his Ross Brawn/Geoff Willis? Without an experienced Technical Director to oversee the design and construction of the project from an early stage the team is sure to have all sorts of problems. Just look at Honda after Shuhei Nakamoto came along.

The issue runs deeper then just the two guys at the top, again I think this comes down to the question of how specialised F1 has or hasn't become. Do you need to have recent F1 specific skills and knowledge or is general motor sport and older F1 knowledge and skills enough? Does the suspension engineer and fluid dynamics guy need experience of F1 to be competitive or do you just need to be experienced and knowledgeable in automotive engineering or fluid dynamics?

Makes you wonder what Geoff Willis is up to these days.

we'll sure find out..

Makes you wonder what Geoff Willis is up to these days.

Probably tending to his garden on full pay?

Probably tending to his garden on full pay?

Yeah, chopping up leaves and feeding them to the dogs.


It's a bit of a proverb/saying in my country...

This led to Anderson being hired by Ligier in 1988 as the team's technical director. The resulting JS33 was a rather better car than its predecessor

Bit off topic but you would be hard pressed to find somebody on this message board who couldn't design a better car than the JS31. It was so bad they left a number out between that and the next years' car!

Bit off topic but you would be hard pressed to find somebody on this message board who couldn't design a better car than the JS31. It was so bad they left a number out between that and the next years' car!

Ligier's model numbering sequence in F1 only comprised odd numbers (7, 9, 11, 15, 17, 19 etc. all the way to 43.)

Edited by Victor_RO, 19 August 2009 - 07:37.

Ligier's model numbering sequence in F1 only comprised odd numbers (7, 9, 11, 15, 17, 19 etc. all the way to 43.)

Ligier has some good cars, particularly in 1993 (pushed along by that mega Renault engine) was Anderson involved then?

Ligier's model numbering sequence in F1 only comprised odd numbers (7, 9, 11, 15, 17, 19 etc. all the way to 43.)

Yes but my theory (although incorrect) sounded more impressive

we'll sure find out..

Well they can observe and copy all the features of the other F1 cars (budget permitting), so their R + D costs will be less...

e.g., a start-up car makers in China does not "start at the start" and manufacture a cart with wooden wheels and a crank-start motor, instead they copy the styling of the latest VWs and Toyotas! (and put some mixture of modern (-> same suppliers for components that have the latest manufacturing and design tech that goes to BMW in China and for cheaper makers like Toyota & GM to plants all around the world, like USF1 will have modern engine and gearbox) and 70s engineering (antiquated suspension design!?) underneath, but none the less it's the thought that counts!)

Edited by V8 Fireworks, 20 August 2009 - 05:24.

So USF1 have the YouTube guy on board...
...but Brawn have Branson, who is still not prepared to pour in tens of millions.
What makes this guy any different?

Well he's supposedly committed as the main backer so we can only assume it will be a tidy sum.

So USF1 have the YouTube guy on board...
...but Brawn have Branson, who is still not prepared to pour in tens of millions.
What makes this guy any different?

Ross told cheap Branson to F off already.

Well he's supposedly committed as the main backer so we can only assume it will be a tidy sum.

I find it strange how Autosport appears to have bought into USF1.

It's headline on the site: 'Now it is time to take USF1 seriously'

I'm sorry, I'll take them seriously when they're on the grid.

They've got a backer. So did Mastercard Lola...