Haas To Be A New F1 Team?

[Captain Ahab Jr]

Would be great to have some new blood enter F1, especially a team from the USA

Gene Haas confirms F1 entry interest for 2015 | Formula 1 | Formula 1 news, live F1 | ESPN F1

With financial backing from HASS Automation I really hope they don't make a mess of it like USF1's pathetic effort

[Embraer]

awesome, id love to see that!

[herr_oberst]

Good News!

[Flieger]

I like HAAS- they are local and make some great machines.

[Aragorn]

How do you make a small fortune in racing... Start with a large one and whittle it down. Just look to Hogan Racing from back in the CART days of the late 90's.

The Peter Windsor US F1 team kind of looked like a good plan from the outside. But when you dug into the overall premise of where the team was going to be located and the cash outlays they were going to have to come up with just to compete in F1, that was where it fell apart.

US F1 Team - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Unless you are based in Europe (England or the Continent) you are effectively out of the loop. F1 is more of a culture than a business. Unless you have the top driver, top designer, top team manager and the financial backing to support it you are going to be lapping at the back of the field.

Mercedes and BMW both bought existing teams (Honda/Brawn and Sauber) and pumped copious amounts of money into creating top level teams with winning drivers. Both in my estimation failed in achieving anything close to that goal. BMW tucked its tail and left F1. Mercedes have gone through a litany list of top talented drivers and cannot produce a car that they are comfortable in to win a championship.

More power to Mr. Haas if he can do it and I will be glad if he can. I just don't want to see a slow car struggling to make the cut of each race. That would be embarrassing to watch (similar to seeing Alex Zanardi and Michael Andretti fail in F1.)

[kiwiokie]

Very steep learning curve unless you buy an existing team.

[bell]

I think Peter Windsor got the short end of the stick on that deal, I really really wanted to see him and his team in the grid...
I think if they had the cash they would've put forth a respectable effort. ..

[intakexhaust]

Originally Posted by kiwiokie

Very steep learning curve unless you buy an existing team.

Might not be too far off. Also, upcoming new formula helps as an equalizer for newby teams, rookie drivers, etc. Coming from what he's achieved in CRASHCAR, it would be interesting to know what's drawing Gene Haas to F1. Hope he gets a blessing from Bernie E.

.... hey, wait a second here.... no relation to Carl Haas but isn't his (Carl's) wife short name Bernie?

[kiwiokie]

I doubt the rule changes will be that beneficial other than to disrupt the normal pecking order of the existing teams. Any existing team has so much data on component destruction testing, component life cycle, tire data, track temperatures, track surface, and even physical logistics of what you need at every race. Toyota sunk a huge amount of money into F1 at a time when there was a lot more on track testing and never achieved the level of success that their investment would have justified. No criticism of Haas as I expect it would be the same if an F1 team were to go to the US and start a NASCAR team from scratch.

[intakexhaust]

verdict in - BE says not enough $
tough times

[Captain Ahab Jr]

Haas still aiming for F1 despite Ecclestone warning

Gene Haas has vowed to fight on for formula one, despite Bernie Ecclestone saying a 2015 team entry for the American foray is "most unlikely".

Even despite his fortune, his proven record as a Nascar team co-owner and his state of the art wind tunnel and related businesses, F1 supremo Ecclestone said recently he doubts 61-year-old Haas is really prepared to spend what it takes at the pinnacle of motor sport.

"Somebody can have 10 billion in the bank but it doesn't mean they are going to spend it," Ecclestone was quoted by F1 business journalist Caroline Reid.

Haas confirmed on Monday that Haas Racing Development has already paid the $5000 application fee to the FIA, after the governing body invited interest in the vacant 2015 team slot.

But "Mr Ecclestone doesn't think I have enough money to do this," Haas is quoted by the Associated Press, admitting the 83-year-old Briton was being "brutally honest" when he issued the warning.

"He doesn't think we will get the license. So my chances probably aren't that great of a shot," he added, revealing that he has also had a few meetings with Ecclestone.

Vowing to double the profits of his machine manufacturer Haas Automation to $2 billion a year, however, many believe that if any racing enthusiast has the money for F1, it is the Californian.

So why Ecclestone's pessimism?

"That's a little bit of a letdown," Haas admitted, according to USA Today.

"I respect the man, and it's a very difficult sport, the highest echelon of racing in the world. They want teams that compete and stay for 10 years.

"If Mr Ecclestone is saying we don't have a chance of getting a license, it would be foolish to continue. I'm not sure what he's trying to tell us. Maybe that it's a very difficult sport.

"We've submitted information. Maybe we don't have what they want.

"I don't think it's black and white," he continued. "It's their process. You have to be respectful of that. If you push it, seems it doesn't work at all."

It could be that Ecclestone's comments are the result of Haas vowing to go his own way, despite the fact existing competitive teams require mammoth annual budgets.

"The big teams spend $200 to $300 million but have 10 engineers working on one fitting," said Haas. "I don't think we'd approach it that way. But I can be naive, too.

"I just think we as Americans have the ability to take complex machines and figure out how to make them go fast without all the complexity. I could be wrong, but I have that gut feeling," he explained.

"Everybody said I'm out of my mind," Haas continued, "but the shock was when Mr Ecclestone said I don't think these guys know what they're doing. That's tough to overcome.

"I won't know until I try," he is quoted by the Charlotte Observer. "If you don't try, you'll never fail."

[petrolhead611]

British F1 teams went to Indianapolis and did pretty well back in the '60's, in answer to kiwioke. Nascar is way less sophisticated than F1, the change in culture to F! would probably be too much for a brand new team. A lot of successful racing chassis for many US formulae have come from England or Italy.