An American in Paris - USF2?

[M3Alpine99]

Authored this with an F1 friend. Now can be found on Jalopnik as well

Link -http://www.racemsm.com/?p=4018

And... discuss?

USFail2? What engine? What chassis?

[auaq]

The first one was terrible ... absolutely terrible. Lets see how far this one goes.

[sullypants1]

Hmmm, I think the car will be surprisingly competent (assuming they make it that far). An 'American Team' is great rhetoric, but I don't think anyone believes it's going to be an all American effort, it can't be. Having said that, help from our strong aerospace programs will help, add in some brits and ze german or two and you have some number crunchers.

I dont follow nascar or indycar but I bet those engineers aren't as far behind as most would think. Both series seem to be a 'spec' type series, less lateral rule bending then in F1. Point being any advantage that is found is found in car set up.Smart people are smart people, they'll just be playing in a bigger sandbox.

Ford/ Cosworth power plant most likely at-least in name, Honda would be the smart choice (hey, they're in indy car, indy car='merca).

Alexander Rossi for a driver, tearing up GP2 from what I hear.

Haas has the money and the facilities to pull it off. He can't approach this as an investment thing or as a business guy, he needs to have some passion for the sport and realize that he's going to be throwing money away for four+ years.

Cant do any worse than USF1....

[Def]

I'll be rooting for them.

I think they'll struggle mightily for the first 1-2 years, then move past the back markers and into the midfield pack. Moving up from there requires a lot of key personnel, gobs of money, and a little luck.

[auaq]

... and oh, a couple of ol' chap in the team as well.

[Stuttgart951]

What chassis?

Haas is already prepped to make his first mistake... in talks with Dallara...

[M3Alpine99]

Haas is already prepped to make his first mistake... in talks with Dallara...

Yes. I know. Was initiating some discussion... or hoping too. hah

[sjpgoalie]

Haas is already prepped to make his first mistake... in talks with Dallara...

We'll see. Times and tech have changed since they've had an F1 team come to them. They make a LOT of racing chassis' for a LOT of classes around the world. Including LMS around the world, etc.

It's year one. Sounds like he is expecting to take a loss, that the entire season will essentially be comprised of testing during races, and is not diving in head first. If he was off talking about developing his own chassis and power package, then I would be worried.

Dallara can't be worse than a first year team, building their own chassis. No one would be out to help them. No one that possesses the tech and R&D to build a current f1 chassis, would be willing to divulge that info to anyone that isn't on the same payroll.

Who else can they go to with experience, knowing for sure that the chassis won't be plagued with issues? They don't have many choices. This actually could be a decent pairing for now. People talk crap on dallara when it comes to f1 chassis'. They mind be determined as sin to build a great chassis. Plus, they can start and could be developing it as we speak. They don't have to worry about developing the current 2014 and the 2015 chassis at the same time, whilst leap frogging continents, mid season.

Mercedes won't want to give them a motor deal. Renault is a toss up and they may not return anyways for 2015, despite multi year deals with teams like lotus. Watch this. They'll use a Ferrari powerplant for 2015 (they've already been in speaking together) and then Honda for 2016. Honda just started taking requests for 2016 this past week, following the exclusive McLaren deal for 2015.

This guy Haas is no stooge. From what I've heard and read, he is a solid engineer and is surrounded by many others. He seems like he means business and is a no BS sort of guy. He's pretty good at putting his money in the right places/on the right people...so I'm not writing him off. As soon as it became official, two of his NASCAR drivers said they wanted to driver it and he immediately put a press release out, saying that none of his NASCAR drivers have the ability to drive an f1 car, competitively. Like I said, he knows what's up. Dude might sound like an arrogant hick, but he's no dolt.

I have a sneaking suspicion that he'll try to woo Montoya back into F1. The more I think about it, though...Montoya would probably rather go back to Columbia and race karts, than be a guinea pig in F1. But, Montoya will do anything for money, so who knows. NASCAR paid him bus loads of money to come in. Same with Danica. They're marketing schemes to draw in new demographics of fans. I think Danica was one of the idiots who piped up about driving the f1 car. Chick can't stay on the track in a straight line, without driving into another car, a wall...or both.

[M3Alpine99]

I agree.

I also think he had more plans/deals in place or in process before the announcement then he let onto(or anyone knows). We'll know soon if he is shooting for 2015 or 2016. With Honda taking orders I think he says we are going to make a proper go at 2016 and running Honda. If they rush it a little do 2015 with a different engine.

[Mr.M]

I hope they don't partner with Dallara, bc IMO dallara are not very good. They have a brand name which is well known, but the cars they produce wouldn't be at all competitive outside of a series in which they're the spec.

[gary88]

They're almost certainly going to start out consistently being last on the grid. If they want any chance at being truly competitive they need to get a chassis from someone other than Dallara and they need to base their main operations in Europe instead of North Carolina.

[M3Alpine99]

I think the chassis has more of a chance to be an issue than the location. How many races are not technically 'fly-away' for all of these teams? They simply have a 1/2 day to full day extra travel compared to others. Australia is a full day of traveling from either. It saves them time going to mainland Europe. However you have USGP, Canada and Brazil. I bet the rest if you add it up mileage while is very close the same with favor towards being in the UK.

I think the idea of you have to be near the other teams is false.

[sjpgoalie]

They're almost certainly going to start out consistently being last on the grid. If they want any chance at being truly competitive they need to get a chassis from someone other than Dallara and they need to base their main operations in Europe instead of North Carolina.

A lot of people are saying this. As if it is just that simple. Who else can/should they go to for a chassis? It can't get much worse than marussia and caterham, man. Proof that things don't go too well with your own chassis either. Bottom line, it is hard to jump into formula one.

You have teams and manufacturers with legendary status, that have been in f1 since forever. Literally. Ferrari, lotus, McLaren, Mercedes, sauber, williams...and then you have force India, which was previously spyker f1, which was formerly midland f1, and before that - Jordan. Then red bull, which was jaguar, which was Stewart Grand Prix (jackie). Then toro rosso, which was Minardi. Caterham - formerly the actual Lotus team. The current "lotus" team - formerly lotus renualt go, which was Benetton, which was toleman. Marussia - Marussia Virgin racing.

One team, that was born out of itself more or less - Marussia. Every single other team goes at least two decades back. They buy the facilities off each other.

RBR can sell them RB11s next year - the struggle still wouldn't be a whole lot easier. He's going to be relying on a lot of fresh meat. That is the main issue. Dalara knows how to construct a modern f1 chassis and it is a great starting point. Probably the least of all evils. They have no experience with setups...things as simple as routines during a race weekend. People are basing their latest opinions off of HRT using dalaras in the past. And if they're not basing it off that, they're basing it off of what they hear, which is stupid.

People arguing the logistics crap are purely spewing rhetoric.

Edit: I just added up all of the mileage between lotus f1 vs haas. I will post it tonight. Keep in mind they go from circuit to circuit on some continents, because of logistics. HAAS also has another base in Belgium, by the way, Synn. Good thing to know. I believe that is where his fully-fledged wind tunnel resides.

This is a comparison between Haas and Lotus F1 Racing. Lotus is within spitting distance of eight or nine other teams. They're all in the same area of the UK. If Haas goes home from Richmond to each race and back to the factory after each one, which he would not, it would 211762 miles round trip. Lotus would do 100574. With that said, both teams would transport the cars from race to race in asia. So, that reduces it significantly. He'll undoubtedly transport just about everything to montreal on ground. He'll fly everything out to texas, for sure, though. In europe, he has his spot in Belgium. They'll probably be right about the same, when all is said and done. The only races that will rack up some extra miles, are the ones that end breaks. Like the upcoming one in barcelona, the end of summer break, etc.

A lot of the teams transport the cars to the next race on sunday night and all of the engineers head back home, make developments based off previous races that has been stacking up...draw up new designs, build them/print them and then they simply bring them to the next race, where the cars are already waiting for them inside of containers. He plans on keeping part of the team in europe and part of it in america, as far as I know.

[Def]

Splitting up operations is worse than locating them in the US IMO. Best to just bite the bullet and put it all in one area, or at most a small satellite office that does non-technical stuff (marketing, business development maybe?).

[sjpgoalie]

The other teams aren't totally linked up anymore either. You have this and that dept. Multiple research depts. Massive facilities. Even guys like Adrian newey do not go to every race. They'll fly some engineers out, keep some back, not everyone is flying out at the same time, etc. They can't really test aero upgrades done between races at the facilities or anything with the chassis, until the following race. It's not like charlie or pepe go flying down the stairs to the team shop below with an idea. The teams are so big now. Even caterham employs hundreds of people, just for the f1 team. They must employee more people for a zero point team than their production car division.

Idk, though. Time will tell, I just don't think it will be much of any issue, if at all. If it is, I'm pretty sure he'd correct things. Sounds like he wants to stay in the sport, once the ball gets rolling.

[ross1]

If a competent design(er) is found the there is no reason Dallara couldn't build the chassis. They have economy of scale and Hass will need to pinch pennies, even if he doesn't think so now.
I hope it flies. Windsor and his fantasy/scam/nightmare have probably made Haas' road a bit rougher one to travel regarding sponsor money.

[auaq]

Yeah, F1 is a serious money business sport. You've got to have millions and millions of dollars to be even in for four-five years. Then on top of that you need millions and millions for chassis, people, a base or headquarters, r&d, etc etc.

[gary88]

Cost per km

[Stuttgart951]

I hope they don't partner with Dallara, bc IMO dallara are not very good. They have a brand name which is well known, but the cars they produce wouldn't be at all competitive outside of a series in which they're the spec.

This is my thought. Years back; Swift was arguably making better chassis.

[Def]

Hopefully they don't stick with them. Who really cares what they do the first year, because they'll be at the back. They likely don't have enough time to get a facility up and get the personnel to make their own chassis the first year. But they can hopefully work on doing that for at least 2016 soon. Basically take the popular F1 approach of odd/even teams to develop the next year's car/chassis etc. during the year so it's ready to go in winter testing while the current team is concerned mainly with operations.

But yea, going with an off the shelf chassis manuf. is likely not going to end well in the highly competitive world of F1.