Update 3/2/2010! The USF1 Drama - A Personal Observation by Flood1

Update, March 2, 2010 -

I am saddened, embarrassed, and furious with Ken Anderson and Peter Windsor. The entire effort has been a fiasco. I started this blog in hopes that a US team would make the grid, would prove reasonably competent, would increase interest in the US for F1, and would not embarrass us with their pace. And, I hoped to have a dialogue with those who shared the same interests as myself.

Instead, they have not made the grid, have proven incompetent, have dimmed any further interest in F1 here in the States, and have embarrassed us with virtually everything they have done in the past few months.

I think it is obscene to hire a driver, collect the downpayment, announce a deal on Argentine national TV with Presedente Kirchner, and then reveal that you never had a chance to put a car on the grid. To lead a driver, some sponsors, and two entire countries on a circular journey to nowhere is almost criminal.

I am dumbfounded that the team's most severe critics were right. I thought the critics were "over the top." They were not. We have been taken as fools, and I feel that way. The joy and enthusiam that I enjoyed while writing about the team on this blog has been replaced with a mixture of anger, cynicism, and disgust.

I have lost a great deal of my F1 enthusiam as well as a portion of my credibility. Those two things are hard to replace.

Sorry guys for being a part of the problem.

Original Post - Feb. 18, 2010

I have been closely following USF1 since the first news came out many months ago. I am not a starry-eyed youngster; I am in my 5th decade, and I had great optimism about the team's chances. I have been professionally involved in technology for 30 years and I know the capabilities of American technical facilities and engineering talent. I was hopeful that the team could pull all of these available skills together and develop a team we could be proud of.

Perhaps they still can, but the rumors, if true, indicate that the team will disappear never to be seen again. I will wait to hear the official team announcement before I throw in the towel.

But, waiting for news from the team has been my greatest personal frustration. The lack of openess is the antithesis of what the team promised. I spend a part of every day scouring the net for info, and the best source has been the manager of their first and only contract driver, Pechito Lopez. Felipe McGough was generally a very good source, but the fact that all the news was "second hand" absolutly drove me crazy.

The events of the last two weeks have left me fatigued. My view of F1 has been somewhat myopic: focused on the USF1 team while desperately waiting for official news, whether good or bad. As a result, I have not taken much interest in what is happening elsewhere in the F1 world.

I am going to back away from the USF1 rumors and cast a wider view at everything else going on in F1. I am tired of the whole subject of USF1, and need to move on. From this point on I am only going to talk about official USF1 news and leave the other dramas behind.

Lotus and Virgin have been doing a very good job of moving their efforts forward, the established teams have presented very interesting cars for 2010, and a new/old team, Sauber, have put their car on track in spite of their own travails due to manufacturer abandonment.

Now if we could just get some dry weather in Jerez!

Comments

[Large Eddie]

I'm feeling about the pretty close to the same. I have to say that USF1 was, despite it all, a lot more open than any other team about their prospective car. They just conveniently left out a few things, like the part about never really having enough funding to build actual running cars.

The team's big idea was subcontracting out large parts of the design. But like Cosworth with their engines and Dallara with the Campos chassis, those parts weren't going to be delivered if the team couldn't pay for them, and they couldn't put a car together without them.

Maybe there was some bad mismanagement or terrible underestimation of costs and they should have bene able to get there with the seed cash they had. But it seems that they just never had the money they needed to make the grid. Manor found Virgin and Litespeed found 1Malaysia/Lotus, and Campos might be rescued yet, but USF1 couldn't find the major sponsor they needed. The communication breakdowns of the past month or so were likely due to not having anyone left in the skeleton crew tasked with managing PR.

> Now if we could just get some dry weather in Jerez!

Keep in mind that Jerez is in Spain and in the plain. Professor Henry Higgins could have told you what was up with that.

[flood1]

Never thought about the location of the plain. Never paid much attention to the topography of Spain! Never been there when it really, really, rained.

Eliza (Hepburn) said that elocution bit, but I haven't really thought about it! I was focusing on her ennunciation, not the geographical implications.

Did George Bernard Shaw say anything about Spain, or rain, in that classic Pygmalion thing?

???????????? Gee, that was horrible, and I promise not to do it again!!

[Dave]

I am a huge motor sports fan...I generally try not to comment on these boards...or any for that matter...but your synopsis of US F1 and their whole ordeal is exactly how I feel....I am now jaded...what a shame...like Indy 2005 didn't set F1 in America back far enough...thanks Pete and Ken....thanks.....jerks

[flood1]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts Dave. We are trying to build a group of serious motorsports fans that respect each other's opinions and share them in an atmosphere free of the "usual" internet noise.

[Joel Lingenfelter]

It is a huge bummer, but don't get too stressed out. The USF1 saga is not over. If you look at the Colin Kolles interview at adamcooperf1.com you will see some very interesting things at the end. Perhaps the Argentinian report that Campos and USF1 might merge weren't that far off base.

Keep watching, and we appreciate your writing on the topic.

Joel

PS - The Lotus cars _look_ AWESOME. Schumacher back, Button and Hamilton at McLaren, this should be a great year, with or without USF1. But let's hope it's with!

[Large Eddie]

> Never thought about the location of the plain. Never paid much attention to the topography of Spain! Never been there when it really, really, rained. Did George Bernard Shaw say anything about Spain, or rain, in that classic Pygmalion thing? <

A wonderful thing that I wish I had more time to explore (if I wasn't spending so much time obsessing about racecars maybe) is the great literature from the late 19th and early 20th centuries that's in the public domain now and is freely available. And that includes all of Shaw's work.

It's easy enough to go check, and in fact Eliza still speaks like a poor flower girl at the end of Act 2 but has perfect diction shortly into Act 3. The whole process of her training and transformation are all implied and discussed but not shown. So no rain, no Spain, or none that I found anyway.

But today (Friday) seemed to be a lovely day in Jerez and most of the teams got in some good quality testing. They should be rolling again for another day in about two hours as I type this.

[Large Eddie]

Managed to lose my smart-aleck reply: "I think he's got it! By George he's got it!"

[sportsman]

I feel exactly the same way as you Flood1.

My original comment, which was a copy of the email that I sent to USF1 and caused such a strain between us,that I asked you delete it, said pretty much the same thing.

I defended them on forums as I believed that they would do what they said they would.
Now I feel that they took me for sucker and have shit all over me.

[Philippe]

I read each day your blog. I came to it because you wrote about Sebastien Bourdais who could be the best driver for USF1. I believed in the USF1 team and I'm so disappointed because it's true that they lie to all people. I trust in this team because it had Chud Hardley and I minded that the team with this kind of investor had not problem to find others sponsors. This team seems to me sympathetic with innovation in the design, but in realty it was words and words.
But your blog remains interesting you have to keep it as it's because you put on it many other informations on F1, and that it's very good.

[Koray]

I don't know whether they dimmed F1 interest in the US. A lot of people don't even know that such an effort was taking place (even the season start takes some that already follow the sport by surprise).

I think they mostly upset a lot of die hard fans.

Frankly I've never believed that they would bring in a lot of new American fans by finishing every race 3 laps down. Ben Spies lit up World Superbikes last year, and I hope he does well in MotoGP this year, but I don't know how many Americans he converted.

Perhaps we're better off with these clowns out of F1 so that there's room for a competent American team.