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Who knows, maybe Vegas will erase any desire for F1 to continue racing in Miami...

You're in the biz and right in the heart of it so I believe you. I just want to say that once understanding what is required to get a job done, the U.S, has been able to produce some amazing equipment. I mean if GM brings in NASA (read all of our defence contractors) engineers and has something to work from, they will produce.

I don't know much about the Andretti/GM entry. What chassis are they planning to debut with?

I might add that it is my thinking that GM will be more than engines. They can justify building the most state of the art wind tunnel along with the sundries that anyone has ever seen.

They'll have the same budget as everyone. I'm not sure how much extra they'll have as a startup, but they'll be hamstrung just like everyone else in the quest for parity.

Oh, and they won't cheat. No one does that.

But you're relating this to money only. I'm relating to the talent pool that is available. Sure, at a price. But what does Northrop pay when they are always bidding for work? I thing GM can match that and use the budget wisely.

Sure, I have no idea of the rules, but GM allocating time in their wind tunnel for F1 has to be a little more than keeping an eye on Red Bull Racing. Anything GM builds has, as Captain says, the potential to evolve the core business, transportation. What does Red Bull do there?

A lot, I'm sure but having Toyota, Honda, Ford, GM in racing has to trickle down technology. Now the new thing to avoid the budget restrictions might be 'trickle up'.

Did you know that new shape of the turn signal stalk was going to be a suspension arm?

I get it. Hell, even Williams sells technology to customers. Not a very far reach to wonder if some of those employees are working on the F1 car surreptitiously.

Maybe so. But is GM just happens to build a new zillion dollar state of the art wind tunnel for the new Corvette the F1 team can rent it for 50 bucks a day. It is just sitting there unused so $50 a day is a good price!

How many engineers does GM have? Can they do a lot of work, share that with the team, and let the F1 team "discover" a new way to do something?

GM invented the new magnetic fluid shock absorbers that is used worldwide in many cars. Detroit engineering can well be at the cutting edge.

Toyota had the same advantages. Was it hubris? Misunderstanding the culture of F1? I don't know, Maybe Capt. Ahab has some insight. Either way, they left after spending billions with very little to show for it.

I'm hoping Cadillac jumps to the front of the field. I'm just keeping my powder dry. And it's no secret that I wish they were going into F1 with anyone but Andretti.

Andretti knows how to manage a racing business. IDT Hass had that education inspite of being the huge company they are. Michael Andretti has probably never pulled the handle of a drill press.

He is successful.

Hass had to hire Gunter or whoever he is. One thing for sure he's not Coach Gibbs.

And speaking of wind tunnels, There are lots and lots of regulations regarding them in F1.

Red Bull and Mercedes and Ferrari would scream bloody murder if F1 just let GM borrow the full size Corvette wind tunnel while no one was using it.

(Now, testing windshield wiper stalks using the latest CFD, that's something else altogether!)

We're going to have to agree to disagree on Andretti. Of the three best teams in IndyCar he's consistently on the last step. Even with a driver who's supposedly the reincarnation of Ayrton Senna and Jimmy Clark combined.

(And Ganassi and Penske have other major projects that are also at the sharp end of whatever other racing series they happen to be involved with)

Andretti is successful. Penske and Ganassi are wildly successful. Red Bull and Mercedes are on a whole 'nother planet.

My thinking is, Andretti and GM will find achieving wins a very tough process due to their limited access to the talent pool of F1 specialist engineers/F1 specialist suppliers because of their geographical location and also both companies have zero experience of working in F1

Winning in F1 is almost an impossible task but not impossible so hope Andretti and GM prove all the doubters wrong even if they're making their impossible task even more impossible

I suspect you are right.

Back in the glory days of NASA when they were working on going to the moon, engineers from all over the world came to NASA for jobs that did not exist anywhere else. Canada saw a huge "brain drain" of the best of the best because to be part of the going to the moon was the place to be for engineers. No doubt they can hire a few engineers, but the best already have good jobs closer to family and friends.

If given the chance I would not discount the expertise of Andretti/GM . Both have tremendous racing experience . Both have been successful . They understand chassis setup and aerodynamics . GM knows how to build engines .

Would they win right out of the gate ? Of course not . Is there a chance they are competitive out of the gate ? Absolutely . I have no doubt a well run and funded American team can be competitive and add value to the series .

Adrian Newey was once an unknown engineer that had to carve a niche in the auto engineering arena . There are others like him out there yet to be discovered . Find one or two and you have the nucleus to start something great . You just never know .

What I will be curious to see is the level of tolerance for team performance.

You can’t discount what the Captain says, its going to be very difficult for a start-up to have the people and produce a car and the processes to be competitive. They are going to have to nail the details from the start.

Its going to be a fascinating ride and I wish them the best.

^^^ I agree . We are all just talking and giving opinions . It means nothing unless they are granted a spot on the grid .

But I have to believe the team of Andretti/GM would perform better in their first 5 years than Haas has . Again just an opinion .

That won't be hard to do......and just an opinion.

No way I'm under estimating Andretti, GM or the caliber of USA engineering expertise

It's the level of relevant previous experience and location of each company I'm questioning

Much more knowledgeable folk on here than me,

Does anyone know if Andretti/GM have enjoyed recent success in world championship level motorsport where both chassis and engine are exclusive to their team

Not thinking of categories where a homologation chassis is used ie Indy, IMSA etc

Captain, there is no doubt you know more about this than all of us regular mere mortals combined. You have been there, done that. Many companies over the years thought they could throw enough money at a problem and win. Many left embarrassed. Honda sold their team for single dollar. I suspect the Red Bull Team is valued a bit higher.

HAAS is pretty much an embarrassment, but they are not alone at the bottom of the heap, and they share the bottom with teams that have been winners in the past.

It does seem strange to me that GM does not just by out or into the HAAS team and start there.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1700070336.jpg

And of course there is comedy!

All good valid points.

They are required to build their own. There are no chassis available from manufacturers thereof, unlike NASCAR and IRL.

I do not believe that Andretti Racing has ever competed outside of these essentially "spec" series. They have never had to build their own car, as they will have to do in F1.

I think, as you have already mentioned, that their separation from the "epicenter" of F1 will prove to be a huge hinderance in their success. I do not care how talented their engineers may be (and I'm sure they are), there is far, far too much "task specific" knowledge, of "tribal knowledge" involved in this kind of engineering to be successful without it. Too many nuances that are vitally important. Too much trial and error went into learning them. They simply do not have that foundation.

According to this article Andretti is heading to the Toyota wind tunnel with a chassis they built to F1 chassis specs for 2023 . Should be interesting if any results are published .

https://us.motorsport.com/f1/news/andretti-to-test-2023-spec-f1-car-in-wind-tunnel-ahead-of-2025-entry-goal/10535262/#:~:text=Michael%20Andretti%20has%20revealed%20his ,on%20the%20grid%20in%202025.

Hass construction is based in Maranello. Dallara has built from most of the car to many parts of the car since 2016. Meanwhile half the engineers that work for Haas came from Ferrari.

The links of Dallara and Ferrari to Hass are indisputable. So I ask again, what chassis is Andretti/GM going to debut with?

So Richard says Toyota is in the mix. Makes sense to me as someone who knows nothing about this except Andretti is not going alone in this with a new car starting with a blank sheet of paper and a rule book.

Milt I didn't see anything in the article I posted that says Toyota is in the mix . I read it as Andretti has built a chassis and have rented the Toyota wind tunnel for testing .

Did Andretti build this chassis in house ? From a clean sheet ? With help from GM ? Or help from outsiders ? None of those questions are answered in the article . Unless I missed something .

Well, if Andretti is going to use the Toyota 2 post lift, Toyota is gonna do something besides charge them rent. JMHO

Yes, I understand that Dallara builds the Haas chassis. They are technically a part of the greater Haas team, or in partnership with them. This is a bespoke chassis, built just for Haas. No one else can run it. Teams are required to build their own chassis, which can be done under contract or in partnership, but it has to be unique to the team. There are no "spec" chassis in F1.

Most of the top F1 teams have "junior" teams with whom they work very closely. Sometimes a bit too closely, as there are well defined boundaries for sharing information. Each team only gets to field two cars, which kind of limits data acquisition, unless they can finagle four cars through this "junior team" approach. The FIA have long since been on to this, however, so data sharing and sharing of engineering talent with junior teams is very closely watched. And yes, Ferrari - and every other power unit supplier - works very closely with "customer" teams, which can be teams other than "junior" teams.

Those manufacturers that produce power units share them with a number of "customer" teams. There is no requirement for each team to build their own power unit, just the chassis. They provide technical support to those customer teams.

So, while the connection between Haas and Ferrari is there, they very much remain their own independent team. They have to build their own car, per the technical regulations, but that doesn't mean they cannot contract that out.

Jeff gets it, having no F1 foundation to build will be the source of their problems

Andretti haven't built a chassis, article is a bit misleading, chassis they refer to is a wind tunnel model built to 2023 aero regs, Toyota Motorsport Group TMG in Koln, Germany was the F1 team facility so state of the art when built

Ferrari have used (I spent a week at TMG when I worked for the team) and McLaren are using the TMG wind tunnel (there is more than one tunnel) while their own wind tunnel is being built

F1 teams supply their own model, aero test parts, technicians, aerodynamisists and Toyota take car of running the tunnel

Andretti will be busy understanding how to build a model, think Tamiya but 50% scale and many $ millions, also as they don't have an entry yet there is nothing stopping them doing unlimited aero runs. Most importatly it gives the aero team practice as due to limited wind on model time once they have an entry the race in the tunnel is more frantic than the racing on track

Pretty sure all the aero design work is being done at a top secret facility at Silverstone, UK and the manufacturing will be using suppliers in the local area

Yes - having been an engineer my entire ostensibly "adult" life (but I'm retired, and recovering...), I can say that give any qualified engineer an engineering problem within their area of expertise, and they will "solve" it. Give the same problem to an engineer with notable experience with similar problems, and they will solve it much more efficiently, much more eloquently, much more effectively, and for far less money. Given that the margins are so, so slim in this sport (measured in tenths of a second over 1:30 laps), experience is the deciding factor in addition to a "savant" level of insight. You mostly cannot buy that (although I heard Ferrari made Adrian Newey and Christian Horner offers), and that depth of talent in F1 is paper thin. Andretti/GM will not find it at NASA, nor anywhere else without specific experience in F1. Putting an object in orbit is probably relatively easier than winning in F1... more people know how to do that...

Fascinating stuff guys!

Knowing how unsuccessful new teams have been since Eddie Jordan sold his team makes me well aware of what you guys are saying. The Stroll Racing Point disaster that became Aston Martin has done pretty well for a changeover. They, of course have lineage back to Jordon via Force India, etc.

I can't recite all the F1 history of who bought whom and who was a start up. Haas has stirred up controversy using the Ferrari and Dallara resources, so there is something that is bothering F1 insiders about the relationships in spite of their car being technically unique to the team.

How does the patent thing work? Change something by 10% and you can have your own patent?
Not really looking for the answer, just debating that while 'unique' they are all very much alike, using spec noses and wings.

A 10% difference in the undertray is likely the difference between first and last place. I get that.

One thing I found out is that until the actual entry is confirmed, no restrictions are able to be placed on a team for design and testing purposes. So I wonder how far along they might be already.

There might be a flaw in the logic that 'running and racing team business' is directly relevant to one's win record. Yeah, Andretti has made many mistakes. Hopefully they have learned along the way. Reversing a trend never happens overnight. And they are still there, so there's that.

Yes, Penske, Ganassi and Hendrick are maybe well capable of entering F1. We might never find out how they would fare. Staying in business and making money is a win right there.

View from my station, across from pit in. http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1700169031.jpg

Now that's a ringside seat :cool:

Yay, I can’t believe how fortunate I am.

The racing starts tonight, but they really went ALL-IN (see what I did with a Vegas / gambling term) SmileWavy for the opening ceremonies last night!

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Well frak.....gotta watch it on you tube.... Sorry....

Did someone say they were gonna race cars at the concert?

Some of the music was forgettable, but the light show, drone show, computer graphics, holograms, fireworks, etc. were impressive IMO. Some creative displays could be seen running at the Sphere as well. YMMV.

They did put the drivers on display at the end.

Looking forward to practice later tonight.

Even though this circus is live on broadcast TV for the race itself, I will be content to watch the highlights on Youtube Sunday morning. I hated the Miami GP.

We use the expression "jumped the shark." More than that this time.

Wife and I just watched the into… that was interesting.