My colleague Michael Schmidt at Auto Motor und Sport is very good at his job and it is therefore interesting to see that he is reporting that Gene Haas, the owner of a huge and very successful CNC machine took company, is the person bidding to enter Formula 1 in 2015 with a team that would be headed by Gunther Steiner.
Steiner is an Italian, born and brought up in the city of Bolzano. A trained engineer he began working in the WRC with Mazda is 1986. He remained in rallying until 1997 when he moved to Prodrive in England and after that switched to M-Sport before being named managing-director of Jaguar Racing in December 2001, thanks to Niki Lauda, who was in charge of the team at that point. There was a reshuffle soon after that and he left to work for the Opel DTM team in 2003 and 2004 but in 2005 was offered the job as technical director of Red Bull Racing, although he was then transferred to the Red Bull NASCAR team when Adrian Newey was hired by Red Bull. Steiner has been in the US ever since, running his own composite business in recent years.
Haas is also the owner of the Windshear Inc, which has an F1-style windtunnel in Charlotte, North Carolina, in addition to being a partner in the Stewart Haas Racing NASCAR team, which he has been running since 2002. The team won the Sprint Cup title in 2011 and today runs four Chevrolets for Tony Stewart, Kevin Harvick, Kurt Busch and Danica Patrick. He is not related to Carl Haas, who ran the FORCE Haas Lola team in F1 back in the 1980s
According to Schmidt, Haas is looking to have Dallara build him chassis and wants to use Ferrari engines.
One wonders whether the story has leaked out today for a reason…
joeblogsf1 
Haas would be a great addition to the ranks of team owners, successful, nutty about racing, and complete with a less-than-clean past, too!
I was intrigued until the second to last sentence. Dallara? Unpossible. This is the guy who buys his stuff from Hendrick (and beat them with it), he knows better than that.
Perhaps all the more timely given this:
http://www.vcstar.com/news/2007/nov/06/haas-automation-owner-gets-2-years-in-prison-for/
We all make mistakes in life.
Earlier, you said you had never been indicted for anything. So clearly we all don’t make those types of mistakes.
Hah! Nicely pointed out.
All the same, this is the most credible US team announcement of the past many decades. Haas has the money, the skill, even a wind tunnel ever bit as good as many of those in F1.
Dallara won’t build him a world beater, but they could certainly build him a solid, modern chassis if he can come up with the funds. Little chance of an A team, but a solid B team is possible.
The real issue would be finding a sponsor able to pay the bills. Haas Motorsports isn’t likely to self fund a project of this scope. No matter who build the chassis, the CFD and aero work will be dreadfully expensive.
Indeed. Any one who claims to be perfect just proved they are not.
I hope that Dallara has a better understanding of F1 than it appeared to have the last time that it built an F1 chassis. Everything I have read about the chassis built for HRT suggests that it was way behind the times both technologically and aerodynamically.
Still, Campos and Hispania probably got what they paid for.
That might be true…if they failed to provide enough $$$.
Yes, it’s likely that Dallara designed as much of a chassis as they were paid to design.
Which in that case, wasn’t much.
Wow. Dallara building a chassis. Why didn’t anyone else think of that.
You know what they say. How do you become a millionaire by owning an F1 team. Start as a billionaire.
Every time I read about Dallara in F1 I can’t help but remember that every single time they have failed.
That said, it is about time a F1 cluster comes to life in the US. They have the human resources and the technology to make into the grid, it’s only a matter of getting things together the right way.
Non UK teams will never succeed in F1 in the long term. Just gotta be in the UK, or continually import british engineers and designers.
If you think that having the factory in the US makes it a US design, dream on.
Tell that to Ferrari, who only happen to be the most successful team in the history of the sport. They’re based in Italy, in case you hadn’t noticed.
Ferrari suffered from this as well. They actually moved the F1 team to the UK for a number of years while run by John Barnard, just for this reason.
Ferrari is the exception to the rule. They’re the only team outside the UK that has ever had enough esteem to draw top talent. It’s also not a bad part of the world in which to live.
For a new team just embarking into F1, it is is rather crazy to be based anywhere other than the Northamptonshire region. It’s the only place in the world where F1 engineers can be move jobs without having to move residence.
Not strictly true. Ferrari moved the design office to the UK twice but that was all.
And they were full of british engineers in the successful years. Now the brits have gone, ferrari are not winning.
Who said the Brits have gone?
Define “successful”. Ferrari certainly aren’t the most successful in terms of wins-per-race-entry. With the extra income they’ve been creaming off the top of the prize fund in recent times (and heaven knows how much of a premium they used to get in the starting money days) added to the record breaking advertising income they receive from their Philip Morris arrangement, you could also argue that they are an extremely inefficient team in terms of dollars-spent-per-win as well. Give a UK-based team the same sort of resources and look what you get… Red Bullets.
If the team (as an entity, or corporation) is based in the US, then their designs will be US designs. True story. Even if a non-US citizen designed it while sitting in a desk in whatever country.
Generally, people who speak in absolutes (never, always, can’t) are regarded as fools.
Gene Haas is one of the good guys, in spite of his prison time. He’s all about ‘the sport’ and isn’t afraid to spend money, but he absolutely does not have ‘F1 money’
His company turns over $1 billion a year.
And at 10% net profit, that’s $100 million clear. Not enough. I think the story is a diversion, as you imply.
Unless he has a large sponsor lined up, no, it doesn’t make abundant sense.
Well it is a technically valid argument. But as they say, follow the money. These technically skilled folks would only do it if they had money lined up to bank roll a TEAM with US roots. So who is that and why would they not simply buy Toro Roso or Sauber or Lotus or ……… and shift some of the work load\design to US Facilities? All the good US racing operations have the sponsor’s locked in before they run a team. Why change the plan here and do it on a wish and a hope?
Starting from scratch is tough even with a Chassis and Engine vendor. The equation does not really seem to add up. Has bits that are plausible, but details that seem daft. So as you say Joe, interesting day for the story to surface.
This has Bernie’s misdirective stink written all over it. I do think a properly run US-based team could work (with the proper cost cap), but Gene Haas is highly unlikely to be the man behind it. His NASCAR spent years floundering, barely surviving before he gave half the company (and most of the day-to-day control) to Tony Stewart. Besides, Dallara is a spec chassis designer, they don’t have the resources or engineers for a full on F1 bid. Gene may leverage his windtunnel into being a small partner in a US F1 team, but I highly doubt he has the $$ to be the front man for such a project.
An American team would obviously be good for F1 and I’d certainly like to see it. There have been US winners, eg Eagle, Penske. Are we expecting a European base for this one?
Dallara’s F1 history is hardly glowing but I don’t think its previous efforts were very well funded. It’s odd that manufacturers that are so successful elsewhere rarely make the top flight in F1, eg Lola, March (a few good results), Osella, etc, perhaps demonstrating why the category is the pinnacle..
Reynard.. lol
I’d say that the superiority of Formula 1 design teams should open new markets for them to outcompete the second tier spec series suppliers if -say- new rules would on short order release design ressources previously applied to Formula 1.
Of course, chances are that in that eventuality, most such released ressources would still end up being fired, alas, but at least there’s potential, if one savy leader had the interest to keep his people around instead, while making more folk redundant at lesser design houses.
Different priorities – I would imagine Dallara as a company is all about creating cars that can be sold at a profit and whose performance can be fairly easily accessed by their customers. I’m not knocking that as an engineering challenge, but it’s a very different focus to chasing outright performance at all costs.
Leaving the chassis entirely to Dallara probably would be a mistake, but I am quite sure they could handle manufacturing a design produced by a Haas-assembled team of current F1 engineers mixed with American talent (of which there is plenty). They did a great job building the Honda F1 car penned by the late, lamented Harvey Postlethwaite, for example. Don’t forget Dallara have a large and seriously underused facility in Indy, referred to locally as the world’s most spacious espresso bar…
Yes I am aware if the Indianapolis facility.
Not sure even manufacturing translates across all that well. Composites yes, but not much call for aeroelastic components (for example) in spec formulas.
“..machine took company..”
Robot Hobbits?
Tool
That’s a bit harsh Joe, he was only picking up on a typo.
LOL I was not calling him a tool, I was correcting the mistake. Teach me to do things too quickly!!
😉
I fail to understand why a prospective new entrant to f1 would want to build a team from scratch. Joe,you have always said that if you want to enter f1, Bernie would find you a team to buy. I can see at least three teams out there for sale at the right price, with most or all of the pieces in place. The stillborn USF1 and failed HRT programs should be evidence enough of the dangers and risks of trying to start from scratch.
I wish them better luck than USF1.
I have a bad feeling about Dallara building it… I think F1 is way more competitive and technically advanced than american racing. I hope Mr Haas does not underestimate this, or it could be an embarrasment.
I seem to recall that Haas was involved in the USF1 effort through providing the CNC equipment at no cost. While that is a stretch from being a partner it would have put him within handshaking distance of the money man behind the USF1 project. Maybe he pitched a plan to that person or team that was viable. Good luck to them in any case.
The Windshear wind tunnel was mentioned when the US F1 (Ken Anderson, Peter Windsor et al) team was in being. This looks like a similar plan. I wish them luck but I also fear for them.
With regard to Dallara, although they have become renowned as a production car builder for one make formula they actually scored some podiums when they built F1 cars in the late 1980’s and 90’s. There’s a few F1 teams around that would have liked a podium in 2013 and did not get near it….
“According to Schmidt, Haas is looking to have Dallara build him chassis and wants to use Ferrari engines.”
What is Haas intention? Will this be a Ferrari designed chassis build by Dalara or a Haas design? Possible Ferrari customer team?
BTW the Honda RA99 was a Postlewaithe design build by Dallara, never raced but it looked competitive during testing.
I suspect that Dallara would just be a stop-gap. The company’s recent record in F1 has not been impressive (Campos/HRT). However they have production capacity available at the new factory in Indianapolis, so that might be a quick way to get a car built.
There’s also Swift Engineering in California, with lots of composite car experience.
Haas .. or any other US entity coming into F1 anytime soon ? Futile Vaporware rumors intended to deflect or deceive …. period . Haas is in no position financially or otherwise to even so much as consider F1 .. there are NO appropriate facilities ( wind tunnels etc ) here in the US from which to create / manufacture an F1 car .. there’s zip nada US sponsorship $$$ available for a sport that barely gains even so much as a notice in the general press … not to mention the lack of US fans , TV audience .. etc . Oh … and btw .. Mr Haas is anything BUT one of the ‘ good ‘ ones …. in racing or business … and that you CAN take to the bank .. if you wish to hold on to your hard earned dollars that is 😉 A rival for Uncle Bernie in the slime dog derby ? Maybe . But a ‘ good ‘ one ? Not even close .
My only hope being that Haas does not take things as far as USF1 and Peter Windsor did with the Hype & Hyperbole to the point of abject embarrassment
What? Haas is rolling in cash. You may have the wrong Haas in your mind. Gene Haas has squillions.
Indeed and they have a windtunnel too
Joe, thanks for clearing the confusion about the Haas name. I was under the impression that the Stewart-Haas NASCAR team was co-owned by the same former co-owner of the Newman-Haas Champ Car team…
You are / were confusing Carl Haas with Gene Haas
Regardless of Squillions of $ available, why enter a series where you are unlikely to score a championship point let alone win a race? See Caterham and/or Marussia track records.
Because no-one has heard of the Sprint Cup in Mogadishu…
Is there a remote possibility that Haas could buy Toro Rosso/Red Bull for £ each, and then go the ‘Honda’ way, in 2015, allowing for the Austrian to be free to venture in to ‘known unknowns’?