USF1 car ready by autumn '09

The former Ligier and Onyx technical director says the timescale of the team's entry to F1 will become more clear in the next month, but is confident that a January debut would be early enough for them to prepare for the beginning of the 2010 season.

"We'll have a car on the ground in September/October to start doing static rig testing," he said. "There are still some things up in the air right now as far as who our engine supplier is and when that contract would start.

"We're in a state of flux and all these things will come out in the next four to six weeks. But the rule as it is right now is that you're not supposed to run a car between the last race and January 1st, so I would say we're not planning to actually run the car until January next year - but then you have almost three months to the first race anyway."

The team's sporting director Peter Windsor says they will keep their targets conservative for the first two seasons.

"A truly successful 2010 would be first of all proving that a Formula One car can be designed and built in the United States, outside of Europe, breaking the mould and doing that efficiently and cleanly. By that I mean we produce two good cars that are reliable, we finish races and maybe get a decent result in year one.

"In year two I'd like to think we could be scoring some points, which means top 10/top eight finishing. Then the sky is the limit after that. I am being quite conservative because this is a new team and we need to walk before we can run."

Windsor also confirmed that USF1 will have a second base in Europem but says the rumoured deal with Epsilon-Euskadi in Spain has not been finalised.

"We're going to have a European base which is mainly for the trucks, the motorhome, the pit equipment and for operating when we're testing. It's a logistics operation, not large, and it could therefore be anywhere.

"First of all we want it to be a nice part of the world that people are going to want to visit, particularly our investors and partners. Spain would be nice, southern France, northern Italy, somewhere where the wives of sponsors would want to go. Becuase it's a logistics base we can be quite liberal in the way we make that decision.

"Spain is pretty high on the list because Epsilon's Joan (Villadelprat) and Sergio (Rinland) have that very nice operation, it looks nice, it's a plug-in operation in terms of us just using it for what we need. But it's not a done deal and we're not going to make that decision until later on in the year."