This sounds interesting, I wonder where they are going to find the budget needed to engineer a competitive car. They are going to have to find a way to steal some of the NASCAR popularity so that they can secure enough sponsorship.

http://f1.gpupdate.net/en/news/2009/...-in-charlotte/

In Charlotte to boot.

"Ricky, the V8 done gone blowed up again... better see if we sneak in to park farm-eh tonight if we want to fix that second one good!"

While I wish them luck, I smell "fail" all over this. The concensus is that to win in F1, you need to be where the drivers and tracks are, Europe. Even the Japanese learned this lesson, you can't develop and test "at home" and then compete abroad.

It would be great to have an American driver in the competition, it's been a long time since Andretti.

You mean since Scott speed right? There were reports of alternative sites in Europe. The key players Peter Windsor etc have been involved in F1 for a long time, he has the manager of both Williams and Ferrari F1 teams at a point in his life. I wouldn't think that they take such a huge risk without knowing what they are doing. Nevertheless, having said that it will take crapload of money and they have to demonstrate enough potential in order to attract experienced engineers from F1 to join their team.

Hmmmmm I give them 3 yrs and then FAIL.

it would be nice to have a new team but we have all seen this before... remember Jackie Stewarts team????

Stewart Grand Prix wasn't a bad effort, but just as they started producing good results, they ran out of money

They need to be able to hire experienced people from the industry i.e. Red Bull hired Adrian Newey one the most experienced aerodynamicists and despite their lower budget than the manufacturers, they are doing very well all things considered. Do these guys have the power and money to hire talented engineers from other successful teams ?

i think they will do good w/ the right backing and experience. Team USA i will even drive for them if they want

Hmm, I don't recall any American by that name winning a World Driver's Championship . . . or making a podium appearance in F1, for that matter.

you are very generous man, 3 years without a good driver and no support from local (USA)markets is a pretty difficult. If only ATT and Intel would switch their sponsorship to the USF1.

"without good driver" We don't know who the drivers will be yet, we have to wait and see, there were reports for Rubens Barichello before he signed up for Brawn racing.

What about Sato, he won't have a seat this year. Maybe they can start targeting him now.

Sponsorship will be paramount to their success; but F1 is inevitably going to return to North America, as BMW & Mercedes are leading the push being their largest market.


Tee_Tz.

Don't laugh but being based in Charlotte, they could borrow lots of part-time help from the Nascar boys. Though we all tend to think of Nascar as 1950's technology, they are only so because of the rules. A Nascar stocker is really the absolute limits of technology within the very strict parameters given to them. If you study a Nascar stockcar, it really has much more in common with an Indycar than a road car. The stockcar builders really are pushing the boundaries of the rules allowed. Don't think that limitless hours spent in wind tunnels and shock dynos don't translate to a wealth of knowledge.
In the 90's Don Panoz powered his cars with Yates motors. Without the limits of Nascar, the Yates Bros built outrageous motors that enabled the Panoz's to hit record speeds down the Mulsanne Straight.
We laugh at the backwards rules of Nascar but don't think for one minute that the guys who build these cars are not outstanding engineers. Unfortunately, it's April and we haven't heard anything about this effort lately.

Well what you say is true, however their particular experience is not on F1 technology so its going to take them time to get up to speed and learn the secrets that the F1 engineers have learned through the years. They will have to hire some experienced engineers that have been in F1 for some time to get them started.

Or any pole positions... or scoring any points... or any fastest laps. I think a couple of times he beat his teammate.