You are most likely right. I'll be a bit surprised if, given F1 egos, they're willing to admit defeat until the last possible moment (or later).
Interesting. Those who are trying to build brand new teams are 'imposters', while those who are simply buying someone else's castoffs and rebranding are applauded?
me too - here's the latest news..... Carol autosport Stefan GP has announced it will test its first Formula 1 car later this month in Portugal, as it continues to push with its plans to race in the sport this year despite not having an entry. Following today's announcement that the Serbia-based squad will send equipment to Bahrain for the first of the season, the team said it will test its car at Portimao on 25-28 February. Stefan GP said it will unveil the Stefan S-01 before the tests. AUTOSPORT has learned former Williams driver Kazuki Nakajima will be one of the team's drivers. Stefan GP said its car has been developed by the team and with technical support from Toyota, with which is has agreed a technical partnership. The engine it will use is the Stefan RG-01, also serviced by Toyota. The team said it will be testing two drivers at Portimao. Stefan GP released a picture of its offices, in which team owner Zoran Stefanovich can be seen with former McLaren chief designer Mike Coughlan.
What on the surface looks like a noble argument is actually not very deep: Campos ordered a chassis built by Dallara and USF1 outsourced the construction of its chassis to the local companies in Charlotte. The only "achievement" would be the design by USF1 and we'll see (or not) how much of an achievement that really will be. So given all that, I much rather have a team in F1 competing that has actually a decent enough car and a fully equiped and trained crew to run it. Lets face it: The only reason USF1 and Campos got a F1 grid slot is because crazy Max was handing them out like cookies in an effort to undermine the FOTA. Had nothing to do with him/the FIA thinking that USF1 or Campos were actually worthy candidates.
This team should be taken very seriously. The 2010 Toyota is probably very good. The chassis/aero was better than Brawn at the beginning of 09; the engine is what let them down. Mike Coughlan, as much a scumbag as he is, is very good at what he does. After all, the 07 (and to a certain extent 08) car was his design. Team owner seems to be serious business as well. What they should have done is ditch the engine for any of the others, Ferrari or Renault. Does the fact that the engine is called S-01 mean that Toyota will continue to supply them but unofficially, or that this guy has bought the engine department as well ($$)?
You're quite right and because of that the new teams all, rightly or wrongly, enter the sport with something of a taint. Of course once some good results are achieved all that will be forgotten. Either that or a lack of results will mean that its the team(s) that are forgotten.
+100. Spot on analysis. Elections are won through majority voting. Just as Max used a large number of smaller members to win his majority vote after the spanking fiasco, he was thinking in terms of having these small, new teams as a political counter-weight to the large manufacturer dominated FOTA... whether they had the means to actually create a competitve race team or not was a secondary consideration...
I wonder if they have had some kind of unofficial nod from somebody and that is why they are turning up.
Possibly, seems a lot of trouble to go to for a team if they think they have no chance of going racing.
They can still allocate the TV money, just split it by how many races the teams competed in instead of just splitting it between them all.
And yet... So the "Stefan GP" stickers are ok, but not the USF1 stickers? If Windsor et. al. had purchased the Toyota operation, all we'd hear is how they're 'just buying their way in' and weren't serious competitors. Someone else tries the same and they're serious? Stefan GP has effectively outsourced their whole operation, whatever it might be, to the ex-Toyota group. I also question how race ready they would be, given that so much of the talent went elsewhere after the operations ceased.
Not really. Since you're so efficient at looking up my old posts: I'm sure somewhere in there I speculated/recommended to USF1 to buy up Toyota as their only way to make the deadline. But for that they would have required some cash. That said, I'm equally sure PeeWee would have made some stupid statement explaining for why they bought up Toyota that in return would have triggered me to poke more fun at him. "On a recent trip to Cologne we discovered that the famous Cologne water 4711 enhances the structural stability of carbon fibre. Even more so than the natural underground spring water from Charlotte. Therefore we decided to move our production operation to Cologne while maintaining the headquarters in Charlotte and our testing facility in Spain. It is quite obvious that this way we save the most energy in transportation costs and follow a naturally green tendency in our approach to the sport."
