Can Haas succeed where others failed?

It's become a cliche - but no less true for being oft-repeated - to say that the only way to make a small fortune out of Formula 1 is to start off with a big one.

While F1 tsar Bernie Ecclestone has spectacularly gone the other way, F1 history is littered with examples of businessmen who, having made it in life, proceeded to not only lose their shirts to sport, but their kids' clothes as well.

There is, though, absolutely no reason why an extremely wealthy man with a deep passion for motorsport and in-depth understanding of its intricacies should not be able to make a successful entry into Formula 1, and all the more so if an appropriate commercial platform is linked to a long-term programme. That man is Gene Haas.

This encapsulates the difference between the Haas F1 Team that will join F1 in 2016 and the quartet of wannabes who arrived (or not, in the case of USF1) in 2010 on the back of former FIA president Max Mosley's ill-fated budget concept. USF1 was still-born; the other three rapidly exited the sport via the back door - HRT at the end of 2012, while Marussia and Caterham filed for administration after last year's Russian Grand Prix and have slim hopes of survival.

With just nine teams expected (at time of writing - though Caterham and Marussia show sporadic signs of life) to take to Melbourne's grid, the future health of the sport is under intense scrutiny. Indeed, many in the paddock wish fervently that the all-US team backed by machine tool magnate Gene Haas - he of Stewart-Haas NASCAR and Windshear windtunnel fame - had been able to appear in 2015 as originally mooted.

However, the FIA entry process necessarily dragged on so long - to prevent repeats of the USF1/HRT fiascos - that any expectation Haas could be up and running in less than a year (the entry was only confirmed in April 2014) would have been utterly unreasonable.

Haas simply does not work that way.

Sceptics point out that Marussia et al had but six months to prepare - and the realistic retort is: "yes, and look where it got them..."

Thus, by requesting a 12-month extension Haas clearly learned valuable lessons before committing pen to paper or bucks to budget, namely not to rush things. That said, with exactly 12 months remaining before the cars are unveiled ahead of the 2016 season, what progress has been made in the interim, particularly given that talks with Ecclestone first began during the inaugural USGP in November 2012?

Guenther Steiner has been put in charge of the project © LAT

"Over the Thanksgiving holiday we looked at some facilities in the UK, and then we ended up purchasing the Banbury building from Marussia; we completed that in the first week of January," says Guenther Steiner, 49, the ex-Ford World Rally Championship and Jaguar F1 technical director appointed by Haas to spearhead the project.

The building, which previously served as Ascari's race/road car factory before being acquired by Wirth Research as the base for its Virgin Racing CFD activities before being sold to Marussia, will serve as the European base for Haas F1 Team. It is fully kitted out, having race bays and stores/administration areas, and is thus better suited to racing operations than the carpet warehouse outside Oxford that previously topped Haas's list.

"The Banbury building, it's got a 40,000 square feet footprint, but there's probably another 40,000 square feet inside, so it's huge. And the F1 shop is something like 75,000," explains Haas, adding that, although empty, it has compressors, air conditioning and an engineering floor, but no "mechanical or manufacturing stuff".

"But," he continues in his Californian drawl, "it all needs to be refurbished. We need to destroy a lot of it, y'know, demolish it and make it more logical. They had rooms for simulators and all kinds of stuff. None of it was ever taken down. It was all 'add it on', 'add it on' - it was just a mess. It was really bad, really inefficiently laid out..."

The facility is, though, conveniently close to East Midlands Airport, where F1 official logistics partner DHL has one of its two F1 hubs (the other is Milan). The plan is for components to converge in Banbury from suppliers situated mainly in the UK, Italy and the US.

Assembly, rebuilds and race preparation will take place in Banbury, from where the trucks will also depart for European events. The plan is to have a core crew of around 50 - mainly technicians and stores staff - working out of Banbury. A handful of staff are presently based there, mainly in caretaker/refurbishment capacities, awaiting the arrival of the first cars and kit.

When will that be?

"Dallara is being used as subcontractor, to help design the cars," explains Haas, who makes no secret of the fact that his company is entering F1 to double its CNC machine sales, ultimately increasing turnover to $2bn (£3bn) per annum.

"It's not like they're responsible for the car - that's our responsibility - Dallara is providing their engineers, but we've got a chief designer there."

He mentions the name Rob Taylor - and no surprise there: The ex-McLaren/Red Bull Racing designer worked with Steiner at Jaguar, and is clearly highly regarded. The Briton currently has a staff of around 50 engineers working in Italy, mainly with Dallara in Parma - although, since the team will be using complete Ferrari back-ends plus sundry other pieces sourced from the Scuderia, much shuttling along Italy's A1 is expected.

Ferrari parts will make up the back end of the Haas F1 car © LAT

Ferrari gearbox entails Ferrari rear suspension mounting, suggesting that such components will be Maranello-made, which Steiner confirms, adding that the front suspension, too, will be out-sourced.

Thus the majority of parts will only be delivered shortly before the team's maiden season - due to having to wait for Ferrari to complete its own design/production process.

"If you make a car now," says Steiner, "in three months, next year, the car is old. So you keep on developing. And all the parts we get from Ferrari, we will not have them before next year."

The plan is for the car to have its first run at 2016's first pre-season test.

However, bodywork and aero components will be of the team's own design, as will radiators and other coolers. According to Steiner any out-sourced common parts will be sourced in conjunction with Ferrari.

"There's no point in double-sourcing. As Gene said, maybe one day we will make parts for both teams in our own facility," to which Haas adds, "I think we're just looking at the economics..."

Part of Dallara's remit is to help Haas develop its European supplier chain, although Haas stresses that the liaison is on a sub-contractor basis, not as full-blown technical partner as was the case in the Italian constructor's relationship with HRT.

"Many teams get their parts made outside, and we'll be using Dallara. As a matter of fact, I don't know if we'll ever build our own tubs. We might have to just subcontract that out, because it takes a lot of specialised equipment to make those things.

"The complexity of how you join these tubs," and he presses both hands together to illustrate the point, "I tell you there's a lot of work that goes into there, that you just can't do yourself."

So much for the European operation, what about the US side of things, then?

"We've just basically finished the F1 side of the building; it's ready to go," explains Haas of the facility situated alongside the Stewart-Haas workshop in Kannapolis, deep in NASCAR country.

"We're gonna start working in conjunction with Dallara and Ferrari during the building of bits and pieces for the windtunnel..."

Any thoughts that Haas F1 could be a low-rent operation in the vein of USF1 are banished by Steiner's next comment.

"CFD is big. We'll have a big CFD group, because in the United States you find a lot of good engineers, who know CFD, not specific F1, but CFD."

During this author's visit to the then-nascent USF1 team in 2009, one of the eye-opening aspects of the trip was the motorsport infrastructure available for hire in NASCAR country, with everything from CFD facilities to seven-poster rigs being littered about Charlotte and environs. Clearly Haas intends plugging into these.

That said, one of the hardware lots acquired from Marussia's administrators is a CFD computer - allegedly an ex-Wirth Research machine used for the CFD boffins' car designs - which remains in situ, but will be linked to the US.

"The supercomputer will be based in the UK, but we'll have pipelines between Kannapolis and Italy, too," says Haas.

Although the business plan calls for Haas F1 to sub-contract initially, the long-term objective is to ramp up in-house production, with Haas estimating that "in three years from now we'll be producing, say, 75 per cent in-house".

However, Haas makes no secret of the fact that the team wishes to exploit F1's 'listed parts' situation. Basically these are parts such as monocoques, steering components, crash structures and other major items that define a 'constructor', and for which teams need to own the intellectual property.

Things haven't gone to plan for new teams in F1 recently © LAT

There are moves afoot to reduce this list in line with the sport's objective (myopic in the opinion of this author) of gradually switching to customer cars. As and when this happens Haas aims to be ready to increase Ferrari commonality and parts sharing.

"We have to, yeah [adhere to the listed parts programme]," he admits, "but that list changes every year - we're hoping that the list gets shorter and shorter..."

Finally, what about car and team colours? How much red will the cars display, particularly given the Ferrari links?

After all, the team's signage and Kannapolis factory display rather generous scarlet doses. Will the cars be bedecked in a US theme given that red is common to both Ferrari and the US?

"We've looked at several [concepts]," says Haas, taking the lead on this one.

"We had one that was basically based on the natural colours of a flame. We thought that was kind of interesting: it starts off white, then goes to yellow, which then goes to red, but it would be just natural colours that you would see.

"Then maybe the other ideas that we are talking about was basically a flat black car with a lot of yellow (Maranello's regional colour) highlights on it. The other, a lot of red, something like that...

"[Our logo], it's like it's red, white and a bit of silver here and there. We would like to have something with a corporate image, but on the other hand you want a car that you can see. I don't want it like a Sauber or a Mercedes, because after a while all these silver or grey cars become kind of the same..."

The one thing that Haas F1 cannot be accused of is "becoming kind of the same" as others. After all, if the only outstanding aspect the team is wrestling with exactly 12 months ahead of launch is battledress, then clearly it has a very bright future.

It is such preparation that took Gene Haas from machine shop artisan to billionaire machine magnate in the first place - and it shows in the team's entire approach.