I don't know how many of those tables they have or if that's the only one.

However I think USF1 also relies on outside supply and have announced a supply deal with Crawford Composites: http://www.crawfordcomposites.com/



http://motorsport.com/news/article.asp?ID=354764

Crawford also seems capable of providing lot's of the other stuff that the team needs. Remember that USF1 supposedly has a different manufacturing process to the other F1 teams in that they don't manufacture everything in-house but rely on outside suppliers. Which also should be taken into consideration when comparing the USF1 factory with other F1 teams.

Toro Rosso also.

They seem to know what they are doing, but the 200+ engineering operation of McLaren or Williams or Force India, even, it seems not!

I think we should just wait until Bahrain. If USF1 still exists then, has two race drivers, a test driver, two cars and proper clothing, it will be a credible outfit.

It's credible.

It's clear they are racing to complete a car, rather than optimise it by 350 iterations as per McLaren design team though!

Never mind, a team of electrical engineers (?) scored 2nd place overall in Formula Student as I recall, the Uni runs a duel program where they build two identical chassis and enter one in the "green" power division and the other petrol. The battery car designed by the electrical engineers out performed the other one, so how hard can it be to build a formula racing car.

Thinking about it, isn't the F1 in Schools program meant to prepare new engineers to start their own racing teams? If so, we may see a lot more teams coming in in the future.

Good idea.

And most schools have uniforms.

I have never typed such a cliché before, but seeing as you made me do a lot of it

LOL!!!!!

Having looked at the team's composition, I'm worried. There's been a great churn of personell in terms of senior designers and engineers during 2009 - yet USF1 has not seemingly been able to attract almost anyone. And that they have a chief aerodynamist with very little experience of single-seaters is very worrying. Does anyone know what Jason Anderson does - is he really in charge of the design? I don't remember any team ever who started off with so little engineering background in F1, ever...

Jason Anderson was desribed as a "lead designer". What aspect of design that means is anybodys guess. By the look and sound of him, I hope its nothing too important.


The videos were very vague about what the people interviewed actually did. They were all described as Senior Designers or some such.

Sure - sorry to have missed the conversation that followed yesterday! -

I was thinking - Stewart, Toyota, Jordan (from a different series), possibly Super Aguri, Sauber (tho out of a different series), BAR (just bought the name), Simtek...

I might not be right on all of these was just a thought - Stewart just jumped out at me. And it depends on definition of scratch.

Consider the entry list for 89:

McLaren-Honda MP4/5 Honda RA109E G 141 10 18 15 2 Williams-Renault

3 Ferrari

4 Benetton-Ford

5 Tyrrell-Ford

6 Lotus-Judd

7 Arrows-Ford

8 Dallara-Ford

9 Brabham-Judd

10 Minardi-Ford

11 Onyx-Ford

12 March-Judd

13 Ligier-Ford

14 Rial-Ford

15 AGS-Ford

16 Lola-Lamborghini


17 Euro Brun-Judd


18 Osella-Ford


19 Zakspeed-Yamaha 891 Yamaha OX88 P


20 Coloni-Ford

and for 09
Brawn BGP 001


2 Red Bull


3 McLaren


4 Ferrari


5 Toyota


6 BMW Sauber


7 Williams


8 Renault

9 Force India


10 Toro Rosso
and how many came and went in between.

Apols for weird looking post - all quick at work!

Could you elaborate what you mean by the above post?

You have looked at the teams composition you say. Where have you found specific information on that? Could you share it with the rest of us?
Which senior designers and engineers are you referring to when you refer to a great churn of senior personell?

I don't know the details of F1 engineering background of the other teams when they started and you might be correct in your statement. But I know very little about who works at USF1 apart from the people in the videos and the 3-4 senior persons like Windsor, Bernard Ferguson, Anderson and Anderson. Of them at least one of the Anderson's and Ferguson have F1 engineering background.

Apart from the above I really don't know a lot of other of USF1's staff background, apart from what Windsor said in his blog some time ago:



http://www.usgpe.com/blog.html

Since you obviously have made a qualitative comparison between USF1 staff and other teams, I would really appreciate som more info on this because it would be nice to know more about the teams composition. How many engineers with F1 background, how many from NASCAR, how many from IndyCar etc?

Thanks

Well it would probably be best to use the same definition of scratch as in what USF1 is doing (since that is the team we are discussing and that's where the comment was made). This means that you start with a blank sheet of paper and not from a already existing lower series race team.

I think Stewart is the closest we get to something started from scratch like USF1 (no, not similar to USF1 as Stewart had the support of Ford).

Toyota - Had the Cologne motorsport operation in place many years previous to entering F1
Jordan - Was a race team before entering F1
Super Aguri - Operated out of the former Arrows F1 team
Sauber - Successful racing team in sportscar series
BAR - Bought Tyrrell
Simtek - As posted previously, started as a consultant and supplier in 1989

I would say that Varsha's statement was pretty accurate

hehe, yeah. People just want to spout negativity non-stop about USF1 so they can just say "I told you so you blind idiots!" when Bahrain comes and USF1 happens to not show up.

Of course, USF1 could show up and it'd be the reverse and we'd just be calling all the negative nancies "arseholes" instead.

Not sure why people seem to be getting so passionate and adamant that this team isn't going to show up. Get over yourselves... everyone will know the truth by Bahrain.

Did a quick search and couldn't find the answer.
Is Cosworth building the transmissions for their customers?

Xtrac

(Xtrac opened a new facility in Charlotte in Jan 2010 BTW)

Thanks DFV, anybody else think this is another HUGE obstacle to overcome? Not just for US F1 but for all of the new teams. 4 race gearboxes with no experience is going to be a monster challenge.

I don't think so, Xtrac have years of experience building 'boxes.

They've built them in F1 before as well.

I think they'll be totally fine.

Thanks.
How about that Emco Gears deal on the Partners section of their website?
Are they not for the cars itself?

Kinda like everyone who works for an American company in a middle management position is called Vice President of this or that before becoming Senior Vice President of this or that........it means nothing but gives them something to put on their business cards

They make steering racks as well, so maybe that's what they'll supply.....nope I answered myself

http://www.emcogears.com/index.cfm?templat...mp;news_id=4103

EMCO gearboxes!! Gimme a break are they going to be racing an old Chevy??

Yep, an aluminum big-block 32v head equipped Chevy w/1500hp and 950lbft Tq.

They'll need real men to drive their cars rather than the fancy-boys that current reside in F1. The driver will 'spread their seed' throughout the world and help produce the next generation of real men.....w/mustashe's of course.

Even if their cars don't score a single point they'll be spectacular to watch and be real race cars too rather than these pathetic torqueless Vunderwagons that currently are on parade.

Bloody hell Lazarus! Was that self-depreciating humour? You should try it more often, You're really rather good at it.

Found this. Don't know what it means. Don't even know if it's true ..

http://burtonracing.net/2010/01/15/owner-o...tion-with-usf1/

Having an opinon (obviously a differing opinion to yours) is self-depreciating humor in your world? what a shit world. Here in the real world we have many people and each person is allowed his/her own opinion. Glad I'm not part of yours. You want pansy drivers bitching and moaning about not being able to pass all the while driving computer aided vehicles with floppy paddle gear changes and power steering. What a farce - pinnacle of motorsports? just get rid of the useless pile of carbon in the middle of it whinning and snivling.

I want the cars to be undrivable for some (hell ANY) old Tom/Dick/Harry jouno that decides to give it a go. I want an F1 car to scare him away from even thinking about getting in to drive it. THAT's what the "best drivers in the world" should drive - not some rolling computer aided pile 'o crap.

Well at least it shows that the team is still pushing forward and recruiting more staff, this time for their race team. Why would they recruit more people if they didn't intend to show up in Bahrain in 2010?

Unless someone has hacked Burton Racing's website there is no good reason why Keith Burton would put such a story on his website if it wasn't true.

I laugh when people talk about John Anderson not being animated or like "interviewing a stick". I haven't seen any better out of Ross Brawn or Mika Hakkinen. Not saying John Anderson is going to be the next Ross Brawn but HOLY COW I have never seen an engineer in F1 give a good interview. It is like watching concrete dry on a brick.

Yes, but it seems like a lot of people here would rather base their opinion on how the employees at USF1 look, talk or dress. If an engineer isn't the most outgoing and as articulate as a TV newspresenter or isn't dressed in a uniform, then surely he must be a crap engineer and USF1 is just a joke and PR excercise! That seems to be the opinion of some

Yes, please Peter "proper clothing". The last thing F1 needs is a bunch of rag-a-muffin's rummaging around the Holy Paddock

I hope Peter gets them team sweatpants (jumpers to you Brit's) and hoodies. Or maybe they can wear Levi's with their arse hanging out

Don´t you know the driving jeans?

With flipflops.........a must.

Shorts, sweatshirt, and Tevas. The uniform of many many Californians

robby gordons crew on the dakar have some looks going on that would make ron dennis shit a brick xD

uniforms will be one of the last things done anyways, you want to get as many sponsers etc onto the shirt to give them the best value possible

Laz, you are obviously the biggest di**here! but , you are correct, bring on the baddest ass machines, with the brass balls drivers. Yeah baby! 1200 hp, traction control, ground effects, bring it all!
Then we'll see what overtaking is all about!

I probably have the biggest here.

For my tastes, I'd rather the only "electronics" on the cars be fuel injection. No fly-by-wire throttles, no electronic diffs, trans, nothing....except raw brute power and enough torque to pull tree stumps in its spare time.

Anyone else notice at the very bottom of the partners page they have AlpineStars to make their race suits, they just don't have anyone to put in them yet?

Hopefully we'll get some confirmation on the Burton hiring from other sources soon. Now that they (supposedly) have a crew chief I would expect him to start the process of hiring the at race crew and start to get them trained up and ready to go for Bahrain.

According to the Pechito Lopez thread, he's allegedly going to be introduced as a driver next Thursday in Buenos Aires.

Plus (according to Lopez himself) he'll be in Charlotte Monday the 25th for another event. (Launch?)

I was in Argentina recently and the Lopez USF1 story was getting wall to wall coverage.

Really interesting video interview with Martin Brundle here.

He talks about the plight of the new teams like USF1 from about 7.30" onwards...

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/80933

"20 tons of frieght"..... is that right 20 tons of frieght per team? that is an enormous task week in week out.

Very interesting phrase from Brundle in that interview:

"A Formula One team's cash burn is a million pounds a week."

Can you imagine how intimidating that must be if you've not got the funding in place?

Yes, talking about burning through £1m a week, the problem of the flyaway races, it sounds very difficult. And in listing the new teams he didn't include USF1. Well I've discounted them, and Campos too, barring a miracle.

The stuff about crash damage is a point I've been trying to make (probably poorly) on here for a while.

From what I've seen on their site, USF1 can make all the components for an F1 car, but can they make them at a sufficient volume for an F1 season?

So if they've two cars, each crashes once in practice, then both crash in the race (it can happen with inexperienced drivers, just ask STR after Japan) will USF1 be able to manufacturer enough parts to make the next race?

And if they can, will that burn a hole massive in their budget?

As ever, Brundle articulates F1 extremely well. The "cash burn" line is very apt.

If Brundle's statement is correct then that would mean that at least £10m is spent on the flyaway races (10 races outside Europe). Virgin is said to be on a £40m budget, so there goes 25% of their budget. Somehow I think Brundle is not entirely spot on about how much the smaller teams spend per week...

And it seems like quite a few of you have discounted USF1 from the start.... Campos have admitted financial challenges ahead and if they don't sort that things could be bad. USF1's financial situation is not known to me. Apart from any financial issues (unless you have insight into their financial situation), what is your reason for discounting them? (Apart from the anti Windsor, lack of uniforms etc. that for some seem to be their reasons for stating that USF1 is a failure)

As I said previously, USF1 doesn't make all their parts in house but have suppliers that have manufacturing capacity. If that's enough? I guess that's a question for the team or someone who knows the capacity of their suppliers. Judging from the suppliers websites, they seem to be well established and serious companies.

Well if the budget is £30m it will burn a massive hole in their budget, if it's £60m the hole will be smaller... So, unless we know their budget and manufacturing cost (which is supposedly substantially lower in the US) your budget hole question is rather difficult to answer...

I'm sure McLaren burns £1m per week, but maybe Brundle's "cash burn" line might not be so accurate for the smaller teams.

In all seriousness, I think Campos (who have financial problems) and Virgin (who have the smallest budget) could both run into these problems as well. Yes, USF1 is based in the US which could prove to be a problem logistically. However, the only early race in the year this could potentially happen is Melbourne. Bahrain, China and Malaysia don't tend to have a lot of crashes, and have parking lot runoff. (unless it rains at the latter 2). Once they reach Spain (where their Europe base is located), they'll likely have enough cars in reserve.

I do have a question though. How many "Spare" cars does a typical F1 team have at any given time?

At least Wirth is giving Glock a Nissan GTR for signing up with Virgin Manor

I recall ages ago Peter Windsor being glad about the budget cap, so he was obviously having trouble getting finance together a long time ago.

Actually no, I don't think they liked the budget cap because they were having financial problems. Remember, USF1 planned to join up before the talks of a budget cap began. However, since they were planning on a smaller budget anyway the budget cap would have fit perfectly into their plans since the other teams would have to cut back to around what they were already planning to spend.