Gene Haas' new American F1 team

  • Thread starter Roo
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I was going to put this in the driver transfer thread, but as it's team-related, this thread seems like the better place for it.

Tony Fernandes has reportedly put the entire Caterham Group up for sale - not just the Formula 1 team, but the road car arm as well. The timing seems to coincide more with the Queen's Park Rangers getting promoted to the English Premier League than Caterham's performance in Monaco; Jules Bianchi might have scored Marussia's first points, but luck played a part in that, and it's worth noting that Kamui Kobayashi matched Caterham's best result - which Vitaly Petrov got in Brazil 2012 - of eleventh place.
 
Actually, Marcus Ericsson scored 11th, Kobayashi was 13th. The writing has been on the wall for Caterham for a while though, Fernandez has seemed increasingly fed up with the team's lack of results. It doesn't come as a surprise to me, especially after his preseason comments.
 
prisonermonkeys
I was going to put this in the driver transfer thread, but as it's team-related, this thread seems like the better place for it.

Tony Fernandes has reportedly put the entire Caterham Group up for sale - not just the Formula 1 team, but the road car arm as well. The timing seems to coincide more with the Queen's Park Rangers getting promoted to the English Premier League than Caterham's performance in Monaco; Jules Bianchi might have scored Marussia's first points, but luck played a part in that, and it's worth noting that Kamui Kobayashi matched Caterham's best result - which Vitaly Petrov got in Brazil 2012 - of eleventh place.
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http://www1.skysports.com/f1/news/1...edly-put-caterham-up-for-sale-for-350-million
 
Earth
If Haas is looking for a young American driver, look nofurther then Sage Karam. Finished 9th at Indy today, super fast 19 year old
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Very fast! Started in 31st and got the car all the way to 9th by the end of the race, very impressive.

According to Wikipedia he was very successful in the Indy lights, he won the championship the one year he competed and that was last year.
His results were: 3rd, 4th, 3rd, 3rd, 1st, 1st, 2nd, 6th, 8th, 2nd, 1st, and 3rd.

He apparently also competed in the 24 hours of Daytona and the 12 hours of Sebring. Looks like he has a lot of experience.

If he competes at a road course this year for Indycar and finishes well, then I don't see why they wouldn't pursue him. He seems like he has a lot of potential.
 
prisonermonkeys
I was going to put this in the driver transfer thread, but as it's team-related, this thread seems like the better place for it.

Tony Fernandes has reportedly put the entire Caterham Group up for sale - not just the Formula 1 team, but the road car arm as well. The timing seems to coincide more with the Queen's Park Rangers getting promoted to the English Premier League than Caterham's performance in Monaco; Jules Bianchi might have scored Marussia's first points, but luck played a part in that, and it's worth noting that Kamui Kobayashi matched Caterham's best result - which Vitaly Petrov got in Brazil 2012 - of eleventh place.
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QPR are one of the highest in-debt teams in England and need serious amounts of financial backing. Had they not won on Saturday, I'd imagine that Fernandes would have sold them and kept Caterham.
 
I don't care much about Caterham the F1 team, but I do care about Caterham the road cars, and I hope someone sensible buys that. Caterham is (with Morgan, although their ways of getting the same result are naturally different) the last of the british low cost, low tech, high fun open air sports cars.

PS - Wouldn't mind if it was Alpine, I never fully understood what happened with that alliance.
 
Caterham are emphatically denying that they are for sale. The official line is that they are "open to further investment".
 
Eh, I wouldn't read too much into it. Nowhere in the article does Haas actually say that he will defer to 2016, and none of the major sources - like Autosport - are reporting it, when you would expect it to be headline news.
 
I'm very good buddies with an editor of that website (May even end up writing for it sooner than later). Lee Spencer is in and wouldn't report it if that isn't what Haas is currently doing. Jayski (The number 1 NASCAR site) also reposted it, but Jay reposts everything so read into that as you will.
Personally, I feel this is a pretty good move. I'd rather the team wait a year and doesn't have the HRT start or, even worse, the US F1 non-start.
 
I'd rather wait until Haas himself comments. However credible the writer is, the story only gets a single comment from him which is open to interpretation.
 
Couldn't they think of a more unique name? :odd: The team is Romanian yet the name is two Italian words commonly associated with the two Italian teams already in the sport. Bloody weird choice if you ask me.
 
Ion Bazac, one of the guys bankrolling the team, imports Ferraris to the country under the name "Forza Rossa". The Romanian name would be "Forta Rosu", but the name would have associations with the secret police of old.
 
Alex.
Couldn't they think of a more unique name? :odd: The team is Romanian yet the name is two Italian words commonly associated with the two Italian teams already in the sport. Bloody weird choice if you ask me.
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Forţă Roșu better?

Makes as much sense as Force India being British team!

edit: tree'd
 
Alex.
Couldn't they think of a more unique name? :odd: The team is Romanian yet the name is two Italian words commonly associated with the two Italian teams already in the sport. Bloody weird choice if you ask me.
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You do know that Romania is called that because it was settled by the Romans don't you?
 
Kolles again? This team has joke/failure written all over it to me. Can't see where the performance and top design is going to come from.
 
Tired Tyres
You do know that Romania is called that because it was settled by the Romans don't you?
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At a time when it was the Roman Empire and they spoke Latin. While Romanian is a Romanesque language, the country itself has very little to do with Italy, which did not exist as a unified state until the 1860s.

Samus
Kolles again? This team has joke/failure written all over it to me.
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At least he has experience running both Formula 1 teams and wider racing outfits.

Can't see where the performance and top design is going to come from.
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Because Marussia, Caterham and HRT are/were shining examples of design and performance. The Romanians no doubt know that they will be fighting at the tail end to begin with.
 
Ooooh, topical! It's like Eminem releasing a song in 2014 making fun of Kanye West for interrupting Taylor Swift's award acceptance speech as if it happened yesterday because Beyonce Knowles' sister attacked Jay-Z in an elevator.

By the time Haas makes it to the grid, USF1 will have been dead and buried for five or six years. No-one involved in the USF1 project has anything to do with Haas Formula. They are completely and unequivocally unrelated. It's time to let go.
 
prisonermonkeys
At a time when it was the Roman Empire and they spoke Latin. While Romanian is a Romanesque language, the country itself has very little to do with Italy, which did not exist as a unified state until the 1860s.


At least he has experience running both Formula 1 teams and wider racing outfits.


Because Marussia, Caterham and HRT are/were shining examples of design and performance. The Romanians no doubt know that they will be fighting at the tail end to begin with.
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Well what I meant is I don't see them doing anything but sitting at the back of the grid for a season or two then disappearing like so many teams of this ilk before them.
 
Literally the only things similar between US F1 and Haas is-
1. Both based in America
2. Both based in Charlotte, NC
3. Ken Anderson was the team manager at Haas NASCAR, back when Haas completely blew and years before Tony Stewart got involved.
Also, one of the big problems with US F1 was that they lost their sponsor and thus lost their money. No need to worry about that with Haas.
 
I'm sure Haas will be much concerned about fielding an enterprise that will cost between $250,000,000 and $500,000,000. Without help, there is no way Haas can absorb that kind of expenditure. This article was interesting to read.
 
It's $200 million to be competitive. Caterham and Marussia are doing it for about $40-$50 million. And it is widely expected that some form of cost control will be introduced sooner, rather than later. Jean Todt is currently at loggerheads with the big teams, who want to cut costs by stopping mid-season testing and scaling back pre-season testing, which might save $2 million when Todt wants to save at least ten times that amount. Right now, the most viable idea seems to be coming from Pirelli, who want as study into slashing downforce and introducing wider rear tyres to increase mechanical grip. But they will have a hard time convincing the big teams, who know they will get a bigger advantage by spending more on aero development. They will naturally oppose any regulation changes that threaten their position on the grid.

With Haas confirming that he will defer his entry until 2016, I expect costs will have come right down by then.
 
prisonermonkeys
It's $200 million to be competitive. Caterham and Marussia are doing it for about $40-$50 million. And it is widely expected that some form of cost control will be introduced sooner, rather than later. Jean Todt is currently at loggerheads with the big teams, who want to cut costs by stopping mid-season testing and scaling back pre-season testing, which might save $2 million when Todt wants to save at least ten times that amount. Right now, the most viable idea seems to be coming from Pirelli, who want as study into slashing downforce and introducing wider rear tyres to increase mechanical grip. But they will have a hard time convincing the big teams, who know they will get a bigger advantage by spending more on aero development. They will naturally oppose any regulation changes that threaten their position on the grid.

With Haas confirming that he will defer his entry until 2016, I expect costs will have come right down by then.
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Why not at least tag the user, so that can actually be informed rather than just a post and run situation?

Anyways where are you getting your numbers from @Dragonwhisky?
 
LMSCorvetteGT2
Why not at least tag the user, so that can actually be informed rather than just a post and run situation?

Anyways where are you getting your numbers from @Dragonwhisky?
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We never got alerts on the old system so why does it matter? It is the post under the one he replied to and he isn't the only member to do it.
 
I stopped reading as soon as I saw "Christian Sylt" in the byline. He is Bernie Ecclestone's spin doctor of choice. Pretty much anything he says is written with an agenda in mind.
 

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