USF1 is official
Officially announced, that is. The much-rumoured new American Formula One team, USF1, was announced today at a press conference on speedtv.com.
There wasn’t much new information to be had and the team is obviously at a very early stage but it definitely looks like it’s going to happen. They have a budget and everything!
Despite earlier rumours, they haven’t made any decision on drivers yet but do intend to have an all American line up even if they would be “relatively inexperienced and rusty”. Two names that were mentioned were Marco Andretti and Graham Rahal. In fact they got Mario Andretti on the phone to plug his grandson Marco saying he would love to see him in an F1 car.
On being based in Charlotte, the team don’t see it as a problem. As Ken Anderson said, a lot of the technology that is used in NASCAR can be directly applied to F1; a wind tunnel doesn’t know if it being used for NASCAR or Formula One and not having a home race shouldn’t be a problem either as they plan to “take the US to F1” rather than try to convert millions of Americans to F1.
As for engines, the team plan to send a proposal to all the manufacturers currently in Formula One with no preference for a particular engine supplier. This seems to go slightly against the all-American, made in USA theme.
So USF1 is here. In name, at least. Now all they need to sort out are drivers, engines and sponsors…
The speedtv videos are embedded below.