Racing Eagles

Thank You Peter and Ken.

Now that things have settled down a little bit. There is a post that I forgot to do last week.

Peter Windsor, Ken Anderson.

Thank you.

The USF1 concept is something I know the both of you have been working on for years. Its something that you have put a lot of thought into. Its something that you have worked hard on. Its something that you both have staked your considerable reputations on. So thank you for taking the risk.

Also thank you for be willing to go against the F1 norm. Things like making the sport more accessible to fans and giving the chance for American engineers and drivers to compete in F1. I hope other teams take note of what you are doing.

For the small pocket of devoted F1 fans in the United States, this is the best news we've had in the sport for sometime. I hope you can find the talent and resources to make this dream a reality.

So in closing, again... thank you. Now lets make this happen!

Drivers Debate: Rubens Barrichello

I mentioned this in a earlier post, I love the idea of Rubens Barrichello as a driver for USF1. Since his drive at Honda seems to be up in the air right now, there is no better time to get him on board.

There are three central reasons why I want him in the  USF1 set up.

Experience to learn from...

Rubens made his debut in Formula One at the South African Grand Prix in 1993. Since then, he has started a record setting 267 Grands Prix winning 9 races and scoring 530 points in his 15 year career. In this long career, Rubens has seen it all. He has driven against Senna, Prost, Mansell, Häkkinen, and Schumacher. He has been on small-budget success stories (Jordan and Stewart,) big-budget sucess stories (for Michael at least, but he did win a few races at Ferrari,) and probably the biggest failure in modern F1 racing (Honda.)

North Carolina and USF1

 

One of the most interesting things about the USF1 concept is the fact that team will be based in the United States. This marks the first time since the Penske days of the 1970's that a F1 car will build in the U.S..

The plan has met with skepticism. Why would they want to base a F1 team in the United States? Wouldn't it cost more money because of the increase in travel costs? Does the U.S. have the necessary infrastructure for an F1 team? Does North Carolina have enough people of proper skills? Isn't this taking the U.S.-centric concept a little too far?

Things are starting to come together for USF1

Here is a round up of some of the latest tidbits from Autosport about USF1 since the Tuesday launch.

• Ken Anderson told Autosport that they expect to have a chassis ready for testing by the autumn of 2009 and ready to hit the track next winter. That is a little ambitious for a new team to have a new chassis designed and built in nine months but it is good that they are leaving themselves plenty of time to test out the car before it hits the track in anger.

USF1 and KERS

One of the latest technologies to hit the grid this year in F1 are Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems or KERS. KERS in a way is like the headlight generator of a bicycle. When a car with KERS brakes, a generator attached to the flywheel is activated which draws energy off of the driveshaft which produces either kinetic or electrical energy. This is stored on the car and can be used as a "boost" in power to the car by feeding this energy back into the system.

The introduction of KERS has been a hot topic among F1 teams and fans alike. Many teams have stated that they will not be running the technology at the start of the season. There have been some growing pains in testing. However, teams are expected to use this technology this season in different ways.

The prospect of this technology in the sport adds a great dimension to the fast approaching 2009 season.

Ideas for USF1: Partner up with a GP2 team.

 

At the press conference yesterday, many of the media questions were dominated by speculation about different drivers for USF1. Windsor responded that anyone or everyone with "a bit of road dust on them" was in play for the USF1 seats. This got me thinking, what would be best way for a driver to prepare himself for joining a F1 team?

Join a GP2 team.

USF1 Website launched: Windsor starts a blog.

USF1 has quietly launched their website. There is not much in terms of fancy graphics and such (yet), but it has a lot of substance in the articles on there so far. The blog by Peter Windsor looks like something great to come. I've just finished the first article where he describes the day the news broke about USF1. Here is a taste, but it worth reading the whole thing:

"I guess it all began on the morning of Wed, Feb 4, when I awoke in my San Francisco hotel room – box, in reality, featuring a wall-to-wall bed – to find 35 emails on my BlackBerry.

What to take from all this.

The last two days have been hectic in terms of USF1 news. I hate to say this, but the press conference left more questions than answers. Especially where that line was for the Scott Speed merchandise at Indy. Anyhow, here are some things I took from the past two days of interviews and events in relations to USF1.

Being idealistic versus being practical.

Windsor and Anderson alleviated my fears somewhat of unrealistic expectations. True they said they are in it to win. Some might laugh at that but would you really want a team on the grid that didn't have that as their primary goal?

The USF1 press conference highlights and Q&A

Not the full show but the first couple of minutes. Here is the introduction:

Peter Windsor discusses USF1 on Speed. (Update)

Peter Windsor was on the Wind Tunnel with Dave Despain last night and gave us a little preview of what is going on with USF1. I am going to save the love fest article till after the press conference tomorrow.

All I can say is that I am very, very happy with what he said.

Here is the second part as given by Speed.