That's how I've seen it. I fully saw him driving over the lines of good clean hard racing in Miami, but it's nothing different than what numerous other drivers have done many times most of whom didn't receive penalties.
They still race trucks? They (nascar) must have completely stopped promoting it. Let's be honest: They can put Max and Lewis in those cars and they still won't be contenders. They don't have the money, staff, managment or ownership to facilitate a TOP-running team. The only thing they DO have is a seat at the table, something Andretti can only dream of...
Most teams start as backmarkers, and some get a break bringing them up to the front. I remember the early years of McLaren, Williams, Toleman (now Alpine), BAR (now Mercedes), even Jordan (now Aston Martin), and it wasn't very glorious at times !!
Haas is 10 years old they use customer engines (so they’ll never be allowed to truly rival Ferrari) they use kit cars designed by Dallara with some Ferrari bits their owner DGAF about getting better so no, they’re not a plucky upstart waiting for their day in the sun. this is what ya got (unless they sell to Andretti, wink wink)
Haas satisfies the FIA requirements; 6 out of 10 teams use customer engines, so they are in good company ! They outsource as much as they can from Ferrari: engine, gearbox, suspension, but own the IP for their chassis. Other components were available over the counter, and didn't need to be made in house as some teams do. Gene Haas brought a new model, not trying to engineer everything and re-invent the wheel. I thought it's a good effort for a start-up team. Let's no forget that one year they finished 5th in the WCC !! I don't know if Gene Haas DGAF; his team has been mostly self- financing over the years. I hope they stay in F1, and would prefer them any day to the Andretti gatecrasher.
you're nuts Andretti would be far less compelling without Cadillac involved; combine the two and I don't see how anyone argues they wouldn't be better than any existing customer engine team (over half the grid, as you point out)
The difference today is you cannot even begin to compete unless you have a, what, 200 million dollar budget? And even a backmarker driver costs you a few million a year. AND to top it all off - with the tightest rules ever, it's almost impossible to 'innovate'. Innovation costs a lot of money, and there are only a small handful of teams that can truly 'innovate'. Yeah, I hope they stay in F1 too, with better drivers. Also, finishing 5th in 2018 was not bad - but go look at all the teams behind them - they SHOULD have been 5th. (keep in mind in 2018 cars sucked or the engines sucked on those that were behind Haas - those teams didn't have #1 engines or the $$$ to develop a chassis - wasn't McLaren or Williams on the verge of bankruptcy?)
