According the Adam Cooper (
AKA the Woodward and Bernstein of the USF1 failure story,) USF1 had not one but two paid drivers ready to go for the 2010 season.
Besides Lopez, USF1 had James Rossiter signed, sealed, and ready to go for the 2010 season. Cooper reports that Rossiter was signing a similar deal to Lopez for about $8 million.
So lets do some back of a napkin math for a second.
Income:
Paid drivers: $16,000,000
Income from FOM for new teams (plus free transportation for cars and 10,000kg of freight to races.): $10,000,000
conservative estimate of capital investment by by Hurley and others: $40,000,000
Total: $66,000,000 in capital (conservative estimate)
That is larger than the budget of Super Aguri, Minadri, and other smaller teams of the past. However that is half of the $120 million spent by the the smallest team (Force India) that built their own chassis in 2008. Add to that, Force India also didn't have the infrastructure costs like USF1. So it isn't a "apples to apples" comparison. However it shows how steep of a hill USF1 had to climb.
For the numbers above, that is my conservative estimate. I would personally put the number closer to $75m. Is this an impossibly budget to work with? Almost. The team needed smart leadership who were conservative in their approach. Windsor and Anderson had the right approach to outsourcing, but they should of taken to a new level. With a budget like that, they should of teamed up with a chassis builder while they slowly built their own infrastructure. They needed to go hook up with the Lola's of the world and go from there.
Sorry if this is a little bit retrospective but USF1 should of went with a customer chassis. This would of given USF1 a car that was ready to go. It would of bought them time to get more capital and build their infrastructure. That is how everyone from Frank Williams to Enzo Ferrari started out. Instead of fooling around with your own shop, rent someone car while you build up your own. I think that is the one thing that saved Campos. I guess that Campos had a lot smaller budget than USF1. However the difference in survival between the two is that they had something with a proven chassis builder to work off of.
USF1 just needed to get a car on the grid, struggle, hope for the best, cash the FOM check next year, and then start building their own infrastructure. Instead, they try to do and have everything at once. I think that was the real downfall of USF1.