USF1 - To Be or Not To Be

I just read where the new Lotus F1 team is doing testing. USF1 apparently doesn't even have a new car assembled or anywhere near getting on the track yet. There isn't even much discussion of drivers for USF1.

At this point, as much as I want the USF1 team to succeed, I just don't see them on the grid in 2010. If they do make the grid, they won't be close to competitive. By now, they would have to be closer to having a car assembled and closer to testing. They have a lot of work to do before the start of the 2010 season, including testing a completely new car and they don't seem to be anywhere near ready.

Mac McCormick III

F1 News - 18 February 2009

A couple of F1 news items caught my eye this morning as I was checking the Autosport website:

1. The USF1 program is interested in testing Danica Patrick. I can only see this as a publicity and marketing move. Danica Patrick would not be a good choice as a team driver for an F1 team, especially a new or lower rung team. She has proven an inability to communicate with her engineer to improve the handling of her IRL car during a race so it would follow that she would be unable to communicate with engineers to develop a new race car. That would be disaster for a new team. Danica would bring a lot of publicity and a lot of sponsorship to USF1, but she likely wouldn't be able to bring anything to the table in regards to car development.
2. Dietrich Mateschitz says that team owners should own F1. I think that he should look back at the history of the CART series here in the US and realize that team ownership of a series is doomed to failure. You need one strong person to run the series. The teams will be concerned about what is best for them and fight politically amongst themselves. That one strong individual would be better able to do what is best for the whole. As much as I dislike many of NASCAR's decisions, it seems that their model for running the series has worked better than others. Although you can use Tony George and the IRL as an argument against it, CART is the series that eventually failed.

Mac McCormick III
kf4lmt@comcast.net