US F1 Team - 2010 Season

2010 Season

On December 22, 2009, F1 CEO Bernie Ecclestone was one of those to express doubts about the team making it to the grid for 2010. Windsor denied these doubts and on the same day finally unveiled a completed team website. Over the Christmas holiday, Windsor's blog stated that the development team had only taken off 2 days "when European-based teams might break for a few weeks" and that he would not allow "16 valuable days lost in the too-short life of the F1 European winter" to be wasted.

Originally the team planned on running two American drivers. Windsor later altered that goal, stating that the team might employ more experienced, non-American drivers in their first season to help speed up future development. The team denied the possibility of using so-called pay drivers. On November 21, 2009, Argentine driver José María López announced that he had a conditional deal in place with the USF1 team to drive in the 2010 season, providing he secured an eight million-dollar sponsorship package. On January 23, 2010 it was reported that Lopez had completed a deal with USF1 to drive in the 2010 season, and on January 25, 2010 it was officially announced that he would drive for the team. Windsor said that "securing 'Pechito' Lopez for our debut season has been a goal of ours for a long time" in an official release on the team website. At the same time the team signed the former Honda test driver James Rossiter, although this was never officially confirmed. Rossiter was then nearly signed by KV Racing Technology to race in the IndyCar Series.

The team's chassis, to be known as the USF1 Type 1, was to utilize the Cosworth CA2010 engine. In September, the first images of the Type 1 appeared in an interview on SpeedTV's Windtunnel program. A blog entry by senior engineer Scott Bennett revealed that the car would not simply be a design clone of many current cars, but would be very innovative in development. US F1 was to have been the only new team in 2010 to feature their own gearbox, produced by EMCO Gears, Inc.

Windsor's team blog confirmed that one of the team's initial investors was the advertising agency of Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, while millionaire Chad Hurley, co-founder of YouTube, was the team's primary investor. On December 23, US F1 fulfilled one of their promises in launching their official YouTube channel. The first two-and-a-half minute video showed the team setting up their base of operations and the initial construction of the car's nosecone. In the following days, Windsor made clear that the prior silence surrounding the team had been deliberate, focusing on in-house organizational and other private details rather than public announcements. Speaking of the politics of the sport he commented that "there seemed little or no point in adding to the situation from the perspective of a new team", and compared the team's heads-down time to new home construction, " don’t invite all your neighbours and family around to see it at least until you’ve got the living room almost done."