US F1 says working within timeframe
| By Pablo Elizalde |
Friday, August 7th 2009, 10:50 GMT |
 Team US F1 boss Peter Windsor says the American squad is working well within its timeframe to be ready for the start of the 2010 season.
The team has been hard to work at its Charlotte factory since gaining an entry for next year's championship, and Windsor says his outfit has not lost any time.
US F1 said last month it was hoping to have its car ready for October.
"We're in the original Joe Gibbs [Racing] building and when we moved in, it was still a NASCAR-type building," Windsor told Sports Illustrated.
"We've knocked down a whole lot of walls and we're just installing machinery right now. We've had a team of engineers and designers working on the car and luckily, we're in an era when they can just crank out their work from two or three offices working with very sophisticated CFD [Computational Flow Dynamics] coding, that's what Formula 1 design and engineering is about these days.
"We haven't lost any time at all, to be honest. We'll start manufacturing the car in the next couple months. We don't have to have the car built until early January. In reality, we've got a nice timeframe and have it ready. In general, the design is completed, but you never say it's completely done."
Windsor insisted the team is still searching for drivers, with American racers being its main priority.
"We need to make the effort to get Americans in our car. That was always our goal and it still our goal," he said.
"There are very good American drivers out there. To be honest, shame on Formula 1 and shame on American motorsport that some of these great young Americans with single seater talent have not been nurtured more and given more opportunity. If they'd all been out there racing Formula Renault, Formula 3, GP2, we'd be in a different ballpark right now."
Windsor admitted Danica Patrick was not a possibility for the team, as he reckons the IndyCar star is too big a name for a new squad.
"A lot of people are saying to us, 'Are you interested in Danica? and my reply is in some respects, Danica is too big for us now," he added.
"She'll probably go to NASCAR and she'll probably do very well there and she'll probably make a fortune. For her to do Formula 1, it's a huge commitment at this stage of her career and her expectation level would be very high.
"We're not going to be fighting for the World Championship in year one. Reliability is going to be very important for us and driveability and just getting the car designed and built and a while new group working together as a team."
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