Readiness Of The Four New Teams?

[N. Jones]

From everything that I have read USF1 "talks" the most but that does not mean they are ready for F1. In your opinion, Which teams look to be the ones that will make the grid in 2010 and have the best potential to improve?

I would rate them as such:

Campos (not making much of a fuss, looks like they have some experience within the team)
Lotus (they have the money, although, as Toyota has shown, that does always = success)
USF1 (support from YouTube looks nice and they love to hype their location and how ready they will be, smoke and mirrors?)
Manor (small team, correct? Not sure where the money or expertise is coming from).

[Garry Walker]

Well, lets hope that out of the 4, at least one will bring more to F1 than comedy.

[Robinho]

Manor appear to have signed up with Virgin so should have some cash to play with, plus some experienced names involved.

Campos seem to be quietly going about the job and are tied in with Dallara for the chassis IIRC.

Lotus seem to have the steepest hill to climb, with the late start, but with Malaysian and Proton money and a nice name with some history to lure in sponsors they stand a decent chance, plus access to a decent facility in Norfolk (ex Toyota F1 and Bentley Le Mans)

not sure about USF1, a lot of talk, but not seen anything concrete - have they set up a european base yet? how is there work in the US going?

i guess there s a chance of one of the above going to Lola for a chassis if they haven't already gone a long way down the road yet, seeing as they are showing off their "car" and still talking about 2011, but seemingly with no spaces left.

i have a nasty feeling we might not see all 4 on the grid next year, but hope i am proved wrong

[N. Jones]

Well, if one cannot make it the BMW-Sauber team (or whatever name they choose) would fill in the gap, which would be fine with me.

I had forgotten that Manor had signed up with Virgin.
I am liking Campos more and more since they are not hyping themselves.
Lotus does have a mountain to climb. Reliability will be a big issue.
USF1... as much as I would like to see them I am starting to doubt that they will even make the grid.

[Knock-on]

Manor have a lot of race experience in F3 and the old Simtek team. They have a good engineering brain in Nick Wirth and but are being very adventurous in their proposal to design the entire car using CFD. They are also planning on runnout out of 2 bases which doesn't make sense to me but who knows. I suggest that if they get on the grid with enough money to compete, then they will be OK but not stunning.

USF1 have a good pedigree with the ex-williams and Ferrari manager coupled with Ken Anderson who is a wiley old fox with a wealth of knowledge. They are backed by the bloke behind youtube (forgot his name) but are going to be based in the US with US drivers. They have the people and resourses but I think will flounder around at the back and money will dry up along with results. Windsor back with his tail between his legs by 2013.

Campos will use Dellara chassis and the obligatory Cosworth lump but there is rumours they ain't gonna make it to the party. Personally I think they will be lucky to be on the grid.

Lotus? Lotus, Lotus, Lotus? Who knows.

Fundemental to the success or failure to these teams will be the competitiveness of the Cossie engine. If (as I suspect) it is slightly more than competitive ;) then these teams are going to get an artificial leg up.

[Sonic]

Ironically from evidence we've seen so far Lola were the most advanced. So much for the FIA vetting system :(

As for the four; Campos were moaning not so long ago re: budgets, Manor are a mystery in too many ways to judge where they are and as for Lotus - I'm still getting over the shock.

Which leaves USF1. They still have a lot of question marks, but they did at least enter long before the carrot of budget caps, rule breaks etc were mentioned so I still feel thiss team is more "serious" than the others about F1 long term.

Only time will tell

[N. Jones]

I hear what you all are saying.
My reason for asking is to try and gauge how to price them for the 2010 FGP. Naturally I have them at the bottom (for driver and chassis) but I don't want to place all for at, say , 2mil. I want to stagger it between 2-4 so that everyone isn't picking the tops in each category and then filling out their team with the newbies.

I also wonder if any of these teams will survive to that magical fifth-year when teams generally start becoming competitive.

[Knock-on]

I hear what you all are saying.
My reason for asking is to try and gauge how to price them for the 2010 FGP. Naturally I have them at the bottom (for driver and chassis) but I don't want to place all for at, say , 2mil. I want to stagger it between 2-4 so that everyone isn't picking the tops in each category and then filling out their team with the newbies.

I also wonder if any of these teams will survive to that magical fifth-year when teams generally start becoming competitive.

USF1 should be the most advanced so say 4

Manor will be interesting. Can't say they will get any points but they might just be different. Bit of a punt but 3

Campos are working with a good chassis bender but whether they make it onto the grid is a different matter. 3

Lotus. Vapourware at the moment - 2

[N. Jones]

USF1 should be the most advanced so say 4

Manor will be interesting. Can't say they will get any points but they might just be different. Bit of a punt but 3

Campos are working with a good chassis bender but whether they make it onto the grid is a different matter. 3

Lotus. Vapourware at the moment - 2
Is that a '2' or a '-2' for Lotus? :laugh:

[N. Jones]

Currently I have the chassis' as such:

Campos - 4
Manor - 4
Lotus - 3
USF1 - 2

I have heard nothing about Campos other than their ongoing decision about drivers. I remember now that Manor will get sponsorship from Virgin. Lotus has the Malaysian government and some businesses behind it, although I think they will have reliability issues since they are starting so late.
Thanks to Peter Windsor being part of SpeedTV I get to here him slip in PR about his team during each race weekend; so I don't know what they are going to do.

And BTW - the drivers for all four teams are going to be rated 3 & 2 - one driver will be a three and one will be a two.

[DexDexter]

USF1 seems to have most questions marks regarding the design of the car since Ken Anderson is not an F1 designer, never was. You need current F1 expertise to design a competent car. Do they have someone else? If not, we are looking at a Mastercard Lola.

[VkmSpouge]

Not enough information to really tell about how far along any of these teams are. They are all keeping their cards close to their chest (as one would expect), I guess this would lead to rumours.
Lotus has the toughest job as they have a couple of months less time than the three other teams. Campos have Dallara designing their car, surely a big plus. US do the most PR (though usually without saying anything of consequence) and have had their team planned out for a long time. Manor...only rumours.

[jens]

I think it's fair to say we don't know anything about the car development phase of these teams (OK, USF1 "promised" to make a rollout somewhere in this Autumn), but Campos is clearly the most credible team at least on paper. Like Lola, Dallara should know, how to construct openwheel racing cars and probably can design one, which won't be a complete embarrassment. In case of the other three, I'm not sure they will make it to the grid at all.

As for competitiveness in early season... If the field of current teams is for example within 2 seconds, I think a new team will have done more or less fine if they lose about 4 secs to the top. Recall when Super Aguri joined in 2006 - they lost about by 2 secs to the team in front of them (MF1) and 6s to the top. And they even didn't design their own car, but used an old Arrows.

[christophulus]

Manor getting sponsorship from Virgin might not be as positive as we think. This is the same company who couldn't find more than £250k per race for the dominant Brawn car at the start of the year. Branson is an excellent businessman and won't give up more cash than is absolutely necessary.

[harsha]

None of the current lot seem promising to me...

also I'd like to know why the Lola entry was disallowed by Max,Is there any reason :?:

[Knock-on]

None of the current lot seem promising to me...

also I'd like to know why the Lola entry was disallowed by Max,Is there any reason :?:

Wouldn't agree to being dominated by Max. ;)

"Ohhh, whip me harder. Give me a Cossie"

Saying that, I have mentioned it before but expect the Cosworth to be a little better than expected if Max has a finger in the pie ;)

[harsha]

It'll be great if one of them get an engine deal other than Cosworth

[nigelred5]

Might not be too long before the Renault team is on the market... ;)

[Knock-on]

Might not be too long before the Renault team is on the market... ;)

The black market :D

[harsha]

do i see someone like VJ Mallya interested in a second team...this one with a pedigree :cheese:

[N. Jones]

Manor getting sponsorship from Virgin might not be as positive as we think. This is the same company who couldn't find more than £250k per race for the dominant Brawn car at the start of the year. Branson is an excellent businessman and won't give up more cash than is absolutely necessary.
Or maybe he wants the publicity without having to pay for it? It seems like a cheap strategy to me, but since I am not worth billions of dollars what do I know. :D

[Nikki Katz]

I'm expecting at least one of them to not turn up. I just hope that if we're losing other teams (Renault look most likely at the moment) then there aren't too many gaps on the grid. I'm expecting the new teams to be a long way behind the existing ones unless they buy assets of a departing existing team.

[DexDexter]

Manor getting sponsorship from Virgin might not be as positive as we think. This is the same company who couldn't find more than £250k per race for the dominant Brawn car at the start of the year. Branson is an excellent businessman and won't give up more cash than is absolutely necessary.

I agree, why on earth would they invest a lot of money into a new team when they didn't want to do that for a team that dominated F1?

[ioan]

I agree, why on earth would they invest a lot of money into a new team when they didn't want to do that for a team that dominated F1?

It's probably cheaper.
Brawn was asking serious money to let Virgin be the main sponsor of the champion team next season and Branson being the cheapo he is refused to pay the price so he will sponsor a team at the back end of the grid.
Maybe he decided that he exposure provided by a backmarker team is better value for the buck than sponsoring the world champions, or he is targeting a certain level of exposure and didn't want t pay the extra exposure that he would get from an alliance with Brawn GP.

There can be several good reasons for this decision.

[DexDexter]

It's probably cheaper.
Brawn was asking serious money to let Virgin be the main sponsor of the champion team next season and Branson being the cheapo he is refused to pay the price so he will sponsor a team at the back end of the grid.
Maybe he decided that he exposure provided by a backmarker team is better value for the buck than sponsoring the world champions, or he is targeting a certain level of exposure and didn't want t pay the extra exposure that he would get from an alliance with Brawn GP.

There can be several good reasons for this decision.

Yep, but somehow I get the feeling that Branson doensn't understand F1 that well yet. He may be expecting too much from Manor. Does he really want Virgin name to be associated with a thirsty Cosworth-engined car which is going to be miles off the pace?

[ioan]

Yep, but somehow I get the feeling that Branson doensn't understand F1 that well yet.He may be expecting too much from Manor. Does he really want Virgin name to be associated with a thirsty Cosworth-engined car which is going to be miles off the pace?

He doesn't care about F1 other than for getting exposure in the media.
Also I bet he doesn't care if Manor do well or if they fail, all he cares about is to get the Virgin name on the TV screens for as little money as possible.

[Sonic]

Dick is a very wealthy man - and you don't become such, without having some sort of business nouse.

Based on his previous deals, he seems to be a man who is very good at identifying business's with promise, buying in at the ground floor, then selling at exactly the right moment before everything goes south. Just look at the Virgin megastores/zavii story over the last decade or so.

I wouldn't be surprised if this turns out the same with only a fleeting investment, perhaps he'll buy into the team and sell to a manufactuer somewhere down the line.

[Knock-on]

He doesn't care about F1 other than for getting exposure in the media.
Also I bet he doesn't care if Manor do well or if they fail, all he cares about is to get the Virgin name on the TV screens for as little money as possible.

I just don't understand this vitriol against Richard?

He has invested in F1 and did so with a new British team. However, that team was hugely sucessful and it doesn't make economic sense to continue sponsoring them when a better ROI can be achieved with another new team. (plus he might not be as attracted to the drivers partners :) )

Shouldn't be supporting sponsors in F1 rather than villifying them for wanting a return for their patronage?

[AndyL]

Yep, but somehow I get the feeling that Branson doensn't understand F1 that well yet. He may be expecting too much from Manor. Does he really want Virgin name to be associated with a thirsty Cosworth-engined car which is going to be miles off the pace?

I get the impression that he's more interested in the "Branson to back new F1 team" press releases than in actually getting his logo on the car. His publicity strategy is based more on generating debate and newspaper column-inches than on plastering the logo everywhere. The logo already has plenty of visibility through his various franchised businesses.

[ioan]

I just don't understand this vitriol against Richard?

He has invested in F1 and did so with a new British team. However, that team was hugely sucessful and it doesn't make economic sense to continue sponsoring them when a better ROI can be achieved with another new team. (plus he might not be as attracted to the drivers partners :) )

Shouldn't be supporting sponsors in F1 rather than villifying them for wanting a return for their patronage?

Who's vilifying him?!
I stated more or less what you said and than I'm called a hater? :\