Usf1 Makes Vacuum Cleaners, Not Toasters!

[JHS 1]

Among the 427 lots - including bins, computers, tools, a vacuum cleaner, a forklift, a barbeque, a wheel rim and an unopened bottle of champagne - was a carbon fibre mock-up of the unraced chassis, which sold for $7,850.

Link.

Have to admit, one of the funnier stories to surface recently. The closest US F1 came to racing seems to have been with a forklift!

[Rainmaster 7]

An "unopened bottle of champagne" Funny in a sort of tragic way.

[c21 0]

Thats funny, I heard Peter Windsor say just last sunday that they were ready to race in march!

What happened to the rest of the equipment and cars?

[Pucky the Whale 0]

Peter Windsor's involvement in US F1 was about as hands-on as yours or mine. Windsor had more ways to get himself in the media than Anderson, so they made Windsor the figurehead, but it was Anderson's mismanagement, Anderson's arrogance, Anderson's lack of money, Anderson's lack of regard for his employees, Anderson's general stupidty, etc, etc that screwed the operation. When Windsor came to visit (it was about the second time he'd ever been to the place for purposes other than taking Myspace pics with José María López), he asked the employees who felt they wouldn't be done in time for Bahrain. Everyone raised his or her hand. Windsor had no clue what was going on; he was an over-glorified PR worker just regurgitating everything Anderson was pretending was happening while throwing in a few "Skunk Works" or "Danica Patrick" references in there to get publicity.

That said, is Windsor annoying and has he lost all credibility? Of course. And is Will Buxton, his replacement on SPEEDTV, 300 times better? Of course.

But, while everyone will blame Windsor, this was all Ken Anderson's fault. All of it. Windsor's official position was something along the lines of "Marketing Consultant." He thought they were ready to race in March not because he had seen progress, but because Anderson told him there was. And that makes Windsor a fool, but still, better that than the total asswipe like Anderson is. I hope to see neither of them in F1 again, though I won't have to hope much...Kenny couldn't put an amateur dirt track team in Middle America together if he tried hard enough, and Windsor's already been replaced at his main job. His only strength at the grid walk was that he, along with Brundle, actually had the connections and reputation to get an interview with anyone on the grid not named Lewis Hamilton considering he wasn't some generic-brand made-for-TV reporter...the problem is, that strength would be gone if he were to ever get a similar position again when you consider no one on the grid has any respect for him. He used to interview Ecclestone and Mosley regularly, and I have a feeling the former has no interest in conversing with him now, and the latter wouldn't if he were doing anything better than posting at TF1 these days.

If Parris Mullins does indeed buy/buy into Sauber to get a U.S. team on the grid (the "Ferrari with U.S. backing" Luca's been talking about for a while...hopefully they keep the Sauber name in there somehow...United Saubers of America? Deep-Fried Sauber? Yankee-Doodle Went to Town Riding on a Sauber?), I imagine he'll show USF1 the way it should have been done...if there's money to buy a team, buy a team, don't try to start one up in an area with nothing pertaining to F1. Cypher Group and Anderson F1, two applicants for 2011, are both shameful to see.

[Autumnpuma 0]

I blame everything on the Brits. Hang the figurehead.

[JHS 1]

You post is probably in a light hearted tone, but anyway, one fact is that this team could be zero support from American companies or businesses. That's not Britain's problem, that's F1's problem. Just look at Virgin and Lotus. Okay, so they haven't had the best finances behind them, but look where they are based? The UK. In the case of Lotus espacially they have managed to get quite a number of sponsors backing them already quite early on in the season. Okay, that may be down to the name to a degree, but I guess it also helps to be based in a key area of F1 interest. If it wasn't for that, I don't think the likes of Renault, Mercedes, McLaren, Williams and Red Bull would have their bases in this country.

At the end of the day, Virgin Racing and Lotus are on the grid. US F1 is not.

[Pucky the Whale 0]

Not sure the theory really applies to Lotus...

Malaysian backers: Tune Group (they own the team), NAZA, Maxis, and Proton (they own Lotus)

British backers: LR8 (but they're Lotus and Lotus is Proton and Proton is Malaysian), Hackett

U.S. American backers: CNN

That said, the location and Richard Branson's connections helped Virgin attract sponsorship (i.e. CSC, who manage IT for Virgin Airways, Virgin Atlantic, and Virgin Money). And being in the U.K. has the advantage of being able to attract better personnel.

As for US F1, well, taking the Lotus approach and starting in Britain and moving in a few years (as Lotus will be moving to Malasyia in 201-something) could have worked for the personnel side...sponsor wise? Nothing to do with location, actually. Their marketing department were just incompetent; unlike Fernandes and Branson who have connections and had a real staff, micromanaging Ken Anderson probably took the responsibility of sponsorship on himself and hand-wrote letters on yellow lined paper to whatever companies.

The problem with US F1's location in regards to sponsorship was that...there are more sponsors from the United States in Formula 1 than any other nation (at least by 2007 data, don't know now as sponsors come and go; Intel were huge and now they're gone, for example...don't know if the data was in terms of quantity or dollars). As in...the sponsors are already there with existing teams that aren't a risk to be involved with like US F1 was. Teams that could show them a chassis and a technical director and this and that...US F1 couldn't. With Lotus and Malaysia, only Petronas and Air Asia (owned by Tune Group, who own Lotus) were in F1, so they were a new market. The U.S. isn't when the some examples U.S. American companies already sponsor include:

McLaren - ExxonMobil and Hilton

Merecedes - Monster Energy

Ferrari - AMD

Williams - a&t and PPG

Force India - Wrigley's Doublemint

Sauber - Burger King

Virgin - CSC

Lotus - CNN

Cosworth, too, are considered U.S. American in the same sense Lotus are Malaysian as the new owners (Kalkhoven, Forsythe, and Gentilozzi?) base the company in the U.S.

Why would any of those companies leave their teams for US F1 who couldn't prove anything? Some sponsors did leave existing organizations for Virgin...because they could prove they would be on the grid in 2010. That's what largely killed US F1, not location.

US F1 did have U.S. American support, just conditional and not enough. Obviously, they had Hurley's backing. Beyond that, though, they had CitiFinancial, but the deal was conditional. US F1 had to actually get the car ready and all that jazz by X date. They didn't and Citi bailed to continue wasting the taxpayers' money that's been propping them up for some time now by sponsoring a NASCAR team. And to think the government almost got to sponsor an F1 team! Oh well, they already own part of FOM anyway.

At the end of the day, the U.S. companies interested in F1 are already there and don't need a local team to become involved.

I'm not sure what point I tried to make in that post, either, other than that US F1 screwed themselves over with management. Location didn't help or hurt in my opinion; they didn't have the money to hire quality people anyway.