Don't need it, we got so dam fine photos and done used a yardstick to measure out both a renau and a Maclearen to guide us to the WCC.

We aint stupid, we knowed better than to do that to a ferrari and get our butTOCKS banned and fined by el toad

Wat I dont like is when the photohogs show up, they make us wear our t-shirts inside out, to hide various art designs and slogans about women, booze, guns and other facts of good living, as well as how to use them, one at a time or all at once

How much of this went to capital costs such as facilities, marketing, administration and equipment?

I know what it says but is not nice to say that out loud.

Were does it say that everyone in the team must wear a blank expression of Raikkonen-like ambiguity?

Clothes make the man?

No, in US, wind tunnels are easily available for hire, they are using those, instead of spending their whole budget on building a friggin enormous wind tunnel.

Facilities are rented. Machines might be rented too. Since a racer is running the show... it looks like 95% of the employees are engineers and technicians not marketing people. Which should be good, as long as they have sponsors and some way to keep them happy.

I'm just curious: what are people going to say after Bahrain if ...

1) USF1 qualify first and second,
2) USF1 come first and second in the race,
3) One of their drivers sets the fastest lap, and with it, a new lap record,
4) Both of their drivers finish the race as th only drivers on the lead lap,
5) And they reepat this performance in Melbourne?

... incredibly unlikely, I know, but there are still going to be doubters.

Why even bother considering such hypotheticals, it's not going to happen.

<lurk_mode=OFF>

Wow...the inability for many of the posters in this thread to hide their hatred of the USA--and furthermore to refrain from holding all things associated with America in equal contempt--is just unbelievable.

In the beginning I was very far from being a USF1 supporter except for some vague notion that it might lead to the return of an F1 race within easy traveling distance. This was primarily due to being extremely annoyed by the on-air personality of Peter Windsor and also from not being remotely patriotic.

But now I'm beginning to sense a compelling "underdog" story arising. USF1 is being kicked and discredited by so many dubious and transparent stretches of logic that I might just have to root for them merely out of spite.

Therefore, let's hope that the as-yet-unannounced sponsors turn out to be Walmart, Dollywood, Hummer, Union Carbide, and Monstanto. And that the car livery features bassboat-like metalflake paint with a "Stars and Stripes"-themed rhinestone-appliqué trim. There should also be a screaming bald eagle nose cone and faux gold spinners on the wheels. Furthermore, I hope the team personnel incessantly use phrases like "greatest drivers on earth" and "America #1" while being generally loud, obnoxious, and complaining about the food when abroad.

It's hilarious to see the backpedalling beginning. The confident "vaporware" disparagement has slowly turned to feeble "won't make it the season" nonsense.

So please, those of you who have held an open-minded "give them a chance" attitude from the beginning of this thread, please use any and all evidence coming out of Charlotte to hammer these hate-blinded ass monkeys into crow-eating submission over the course of the next 75 days. It will be great to see all the nay-sayers publicly humiliated if and when USF1 takes the grid. I will sit back and watch. Thank you.

<lurk_mode=ON>

We said that about Brawn a year ago too.

The crap about hatred of the US laying behind the USF1-speculations gotta be the most lamest and dumb s**t I have ever read.

Don't be paranoid, I don't see any hatred against the USA in this thread. I wrote a little factual blog post about their full-of-stupid-mistakes schedule, because it's full of stupid mistakes, and was accused with the same you've written. We can't say any factual negative or critics about US or US F1?

Please, I'm British and even I notice an undercurrent of anti-Americanism in this thread, it's quite obvious.

None of the other new teams are getting anywhere near the level of negative scrutiny that USF1 is getting, even though this "American" team led by Peter Windsor.

I highly doubt most of this is anti us sentiment. Its just that people in this day and age expect every ounce of information 5 minutes ago.

I am still undecided if they will be there. Lets hops so.

I would like to agree with you, but I think there is an underlying (back of the mind) biase against USF1, and it comes from the US part of the name.

Try going to a pub in London and mention the American F1 team and see what response you get.

That's the point of a hypothetical.

My prediction is that even if USF1 win the first race by miles and the second man home is also one of theirs, people will be upset that they didn't get third as well, even though all the teams only run two cars.

The point of an absurd what-if is just to distract.

From what? The fact that with each passing day, there is less and less substance to the specuation that USF1 will not make the grid because they've offered a lot of hard evidence that they're on-target for Bahrain?

Because if that's what you're suggesting, the answer is yes.

Article that just appeared on Autosport proper:

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/80684

Makes sense. They haven't said anything because they've had more important things to do than address their critics.

Makes sense but doesn't rhyme with what Windsor promised when the team was announced. Then it was all talk about how close the fans would come to the team. What could be more exciting than let the fans watch the team build its structure? Silence? Don't think so.

In late December they released 'evidence' which was in fact activity from July. Little bit of a car, and no sponsors.

According to the USF1 site They moved in in March. Why the delay?

It's just more of "Windsor says". Vague analogies with no specifics.

Exactly, it is as retarded as the claim that those that hate Hamilton must be white supremacists who hate him because of his colour , both claims are as retarded as each other and completely scrape the bottom of the barrel

I would be saying the same things if it was UKF1 AusF1 etc, I have not the slightest dislike of America or Americans bar politicians

That sounds just like his disingenuous (lack of) explanation about their u-turn on pay drivers. Windsor promised too much. Which isn't a crime, but what is very annoying is his bumptious pretence that nothing has changed. Even by F1 standards he's a disingenuous twit.


And really: it reminds him 'of the time a young Winston Churchill...'? You ninny, Peter, you abysmal twat.

But im some cases that was indeed true that there was an element of racial hated towards Lewis. A vast minority of course, but it was still there.

Much like this case im sure there are some who for whatever reason want to see this fail because of the letters u and s.

1) They acquired the place.
2) They rennovated it.
3) They set up all their equipment.
4) They designed the car.
5) They started building it.

All of them are time-consuming processes. It's not like this happened overnight.

I don't know why you can't keep Hamilton out of any thread. It's completely different anyway, lots of people are quite open about being anti-American. The last thing a racist will admit is being racist, they'll all present it as being Hamilton's unique horridness.

Yeah that's great. That's how you show your team to the outside world, not like the dusty 'n crappy shots from Lotus.

I can't take this US F1 team seriously because they mentioned preseason, when they came to light, that this has been planned ever since Windsor spoke to Bernie about an American team in Brazil 2006.

They should have almost everything ready by now, drivers signed and announced, sponsors signed and announced, car almost completed, factory up and running. As far as I know, none of that has hapened at the moment for US F1, they have been planning this for a much longer period than the other new teams and they appear to be the furthest behind, how am I supposed to take them seriously?

I want them to make it but it just doesn't seem to be happening, and I won't believe it is happening until I see concrete evidence that they have made alot of progress.

"We’re all in the entertainment business we call F1 …..”

All professional sports may be entertainment business, but it is bit wired to hear it from the director of the team, which participates in that sport. I hope F1 stays as sports first second entertainment.

Words out of my mouth.

In the period of planning they should have been talking to potential sponsors, so that once they publically announced their plans they could then announce their backers etc. It would have given the team much more credibility. After Windsor's continious blabbing on they do not have the excuse of starting up late like some of the others do.

One thing ive noticed with the other teams is that there is only talk of Bahrain, no talk of making it to the pre-season tests. I cant imagine new teams missing out because they just shouldnt! But I read talk of building a car for Bahrain... not having a fully built car for February. It is getting worrying.

The Autosport piece is fairly typical Windsor spin.

Of course, he's much cleverer than everyone else, so the absence of evidence of any decent progress is, of course, down to his master plan of media manipulation.

And my word, he makes moving into someone else's factory sound like he's constructing a McLaren Technology Centre.

"Second, since August, we have been building our "house". Literally. We gutted the ex-Hall of Fame Racing/Joe Gibbs NASCAR shop, re-painted it, re-floored it, re-wired it, re-lit it and re-designed it.

So you gave it a lick of paint, put down a bit of flooring and a few fluro tubes...

...and that's taken four months?

Quite obviously from the youtube video, you could see that they undertook a big refurbishment of the facilities. They stripped it out, Then rebuilt it to their needs. its not a week or two job. Its going to take a few months. From the video you could tell it was a pretty big job. Not like you describe " a few fluoro tubes". the place would have had to be rewired from scratch. Thats a big job.

They should have got changing rooms or sixty minute makeover to do the factory whilst they work on getting a car ready and getting drivers and sponsors signed up.

...and I still think their business model of being based in Charlotte won't work.

Windsor seems keen on reinventing the established order of doing things in F1.

But there's an established order for a reason.

I quite agree. It doesnt change the fact that that work they did would have taken time. And four months sounds quite realistic to me.

They obviously burned through the $20m they had, on the building and facilities, some staff and making some parts to show around, and have now run out of money.

Very possible. They also built something at motorland aragon. Not sure if thats finished yet. I avent written them off yet. but its worrying.

Hiring two pay drivers with a big budget will get them more cash flow.

Yes it would. But I suspect the contract would have a big IF in it. And that would be "IF he gets on the grid, THEN you get the money". Just guessing though.

As far as I can see, the only sponsor who would hand over any cash now would be one who was huge and going to sponsor the whole team on their own, so they didn't depend on anyone else.

I agree, they won't get a lump sum.

An interesting window into the world of pay drivers was offered a few years back when Giorgio Pantano was driving for Jordan.

He was turfed from the car once (Canadian GP) after missing a payment, he got back in, then was thrown out for good later in the season.

The reason was that his sponsors missed payments, which were due every month.

Up until then I'd assumed the team would get a lump sum.

I guess this arrangement gives the driver's sponsors a chance to pull the pin if things don't go well.

As for pay drivers at USF1, I've no doubt at all Windsor will be looking for drivers with budgets.

He's not seriously been linked with any old hand.

Virgin nailed down Glock nice and early. Surely if USF1 had any cash they'd do the same with an experienced hand.

Yes. I think why so many people have doubts is because of their driver situation.

Zero drivers signed. And only a vague link to a little known Argentine pay driver.

Pedro and wurz supposedly wouldnt touch them. They made no move for some serious talent. they didnt seem to realise that getting two american drivers last year was never going to happen.

Something smells. They will have the worst driver line up on the grid next year. i dont think anyone can dispute this.

And PdlR or Wurz would hardly set the world on fire.

Yeah, sponsorship is so much about confidence. Once they lose that, they're in a death spiral. Now anyone who hands over part of the budget is throwing it away, barring a miracle.

Great shame, it would have helped get a race back in the US. And vice-versa, maybe with a US race USF1 could have found sponsors.

I'm still sceptical about the whole USF1 project.

Aside from residing in Charlotte, what credentials do they have for this project?

No big name U.S. sponsors, no U.S. drivers...

I presume they thought they could build up momentum and corportate America would climb onboard.

So at this stage, it looks like USF1 will have a car festooned with Argentinian companies...

There's more than a hint of the Simon Gillett's about USF1.

And I presume if it fails the reason will be the same: The economic climate meaning it was impossible to start at team etc etc.

They needed to buy in expertise, for sure, someone like Geoff Willis. A Wirth or a Gascoyne. Whether they had that much sense, I'm not sure either. I suppose it's not totally impossible Anderson could have risen to that level, given time and enough money to make mistakes and come back wiser. I don't know enough about him to say - I suspect his car would have been a mile off the pace, but I don't think we're going to find out now .