Check out the new USF1 website here!

Cosworth have been in Formula One since 1963 but no F1 teams used the engine from 2007 on. Cosworth will now power to four new teams: Team US F1; Campos Grand Prix; Lotus F1 Team and Manor Grand Prix. Click here for all Formula One constructors engine choices. Surprisingly, Cosworth is second most successful engine in F1 and only Ferrari have more grand prix wins under their belt.

No one knows the output of the current F1 engines but the rumor is that Cosworth needs more fuel to output the same Kw when compared to the current best engine on the grid, the Mercedes FO 108V. Fuel efficiency and weight is just  as key as the engine output and any Formula One team that can run a lap to two more than their opponents will be able to take advantage in pit stop strategies. So the hungry for fuel Cosworth is said to be automatically disadvantaged in the 2010 F1 season. But who knows…

The Mercedes FO 108V is said to be the best engine in the pits in 2009. Check out the awesome power of this engine:

Here are the specs:

Have you ever wanted to know the FIA technical regulations for 2009 and 2010? FIA Technical Regulations 2009 - FIA Technical Regulations 2010.

Despite the rumours you have heard around the web, there is no significant differences:

• All F1 engines are naturally aspirated V8′s of 2400cc

• Engines are limited to 18,000rpm

• The weight is exactly 95kg (each manufacturer easily reaches this regulated minimum weight)

• Engine blocks are constructed of forged aluminium alloy, because of the weight advantages it gives in comparison to steel. Other materials would maybe give some extra advantages, but to limit costs, the FIA has forbidden all non-ferro materials.

• Crankshaft and piston rods are Iron based for strength.

• At its maximum pace the current V8 engines consume around 60 litres of petrol for 100km of racing.

• It’s not exactly known how much oil such a top engine contains, but this oil is for 70% in the engine, while the other 30% is in a dry-sump lubrication system that changes oil within the engine three to four times a minute.

• Before its first track time and after each race, each engine is tested on an engine dyno to validate its performance and identify problems. A videoclip of Renault’s RS24 on the dyno can be found here.

So will the Cosworth V8 be good enough to win races in 2010? Given their 3 year absence from the F1 arena, I think reliability will be an issue in their first year. However, their history as a winning engine cannot be disputed and they will likely be the winning engine again. Probably sooner rather than later.

4 new teams to enter F1 in 2010!

We are not just a small new team; we have the possibilities to be a very substantial team.

BMW Sauber is now Qadbak Sauber

BMW Sauber team have sold to Swiss company Qadbak Investments and this could be the 14th race car to enter the 2010 F1 season. Bernie Eccelstone is looking at increasing the current 13 car entries to 14 teams to let the new Sauber team owners to race.

Lotus formerly Pacific Team Lotus

Lotus F1

The Malaysian Government has funded Lotus F1 Team along with private such as the lotus car manufacturer Proton, Airasia, Sepang International Circuit, the Malaysian Motorsports Association, Naza Motors, and Malaysian Automobile Association. Team principal Tony Fernandes will be managing the Lotus F1 Team up until the first Grand Prix in Melbourne 2010. Formula 3 team, Litespeed, acquired the rights to use to the Lotus name but for legal reasons it will not be called Team Lotus. Nevertheless, Lotus will reentry Formula One under the historic name.

Mike Gascoyne, Lotus F1 team technical director said, “We are not just a small new team; we have the possibilities to be a very substantial team. And the FIA recognize that, combined with the name and that we’re also a team based outside Europe”. The Lotus F1 team will be based in Norfolk, England, but will move to the Proton manufacturers n Malaysia. Plans are underway for a purpose-built facility at Malaysia’s Sepang International Circuit which will no doubt help their chances of a good result at Sepang.

Campos Grand Prix

Adrian Campos currently runs a team in the European F3 Open Championship and has a lot of experience in lower level Formula Racing. Campos Grand Prix is partly funded by a Madrid sports agency called Meta Image. Campos Grand Prix is using Dallara Automobili, which has built Indy Cars, Formula 3 & GP2 cars will build the Campos Grand Prix chassis for 2010.

USPGE

USPGE stands for United States Grand Prix Engineering which is the All-American USF1 Team. Click here for more details on USF1.

Peter Windsor

Source: www.formula1.com
The US-based operation founded by Peter Windsor and Ken Anderson is one of three new teams due to join the grid for 2010. With their debut season rapidly approaching, more and more pieces of the jigsaw are falling into place for Team US, not least the recent announcement of YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley as a major backer. It brought the Charlotte-based squad to the attention of global media – and Windsor hopes it won’t be the last time…

Q: Peter, now that all the formalities are wrapped up, there must be no holding back at your Charlotte factory in North Carolina. Where are things with the car and team development right now?
Peter Windsor: Well, all the politics that happened this year have delayed us in some respects, but not in the critical respect of the car. We’ve been working on the design and the construction of the car since the start of the year, so that hasn’t been delayed at all. We are right on schedule for that. As (team co-founder) Ken (Anderson) said a couple of weeks ago, we should soon have what Americans call a ‘roller’ – not a complete car, but basically the chassis, with the suspension and gearbox in place – ready to do some full-scale aero tests. Then we are ready for the final bodywork around October and, like with everybody else, our car will be ready for the first test in January. There is no other deadline we have to meet.

If you are a new team and you don’t have in place existing cars, drivers, factories and everything else. When you are a start-up operation it is very important from a marketing point of view to get all the hardware in place as quickly as possible. Due to all the politics we’ve slipped a bit on time and now we are making up for that and working very hard on the marketing side of the company. The first phase of that was the announcement of our involvement with Chad Hurley. From there we will be ‘all hands on deck’ and marketing the team as what we are: an American team with a franchise in Formula One on a global platform in the best sport in the world.

Q: How are you and Ken dividing the work at the moment?
Peter Windsor: Basically Ken is the team principal, but primarily he is more on the technical side. The last time he was over here in Europe was for the meeting of the Technical Working Group, but then he flew straight back to Charlotte because there is so much going on at the moment. I am more on the driver/operational side. We both have an overview of the marketing side and, of course, we both have an overview what’s going on in every aspect. For me, Ken is an unusual engineer in Formula One because he does have a very good feel for the business side of the industry and for how F1 works as an entertainment business. Both of us keep reminding each other that we are in the entertainment business – and we should never let any of the little short-term problems that we all face in Formula One interfere with that. It should always be a main focus of what we are doing, particularly in our case of being an American team and building the car in the United States. We have a certain role to play for Formula One in the United States in trying to rekindle enthusiasm for this great sport.

Q: You will be based in Charlotte, but rumours have it that you are looking for a European base as well, linking you with the new Motorland Aragon…
Peter Windsor: Well, there are lots of rumours about that and they are not very far from the truth. But for the moment being we haven’t finished any deal yet, so I’d rather not comment too much. But we are very interested in that Motorland Aragon facility. It is a fantastic location for winter testing, very minimal chance of rain and lovely weather in the winter. If we can do a deal there it would be fabulous for us.

Q: Yours is one of three new teams to have gained entry to the 2010 championship. What do you know about the other two? Is there any sort of information flow between the new kids on the block?
Peter Windsor: We communicate with them as much as we do with any of the other teams, but in terms of knowledge Ken and I would know much more of what is going on at Ferrari or Toyota. From our perspective the other two new teams are very, very quiet, but I suppose I’m the wrong person to ask.

Q: The Team US-Chad Hurley cooperation has raised a few eyebrows. How did the two of you get together?
Peter Windsor: Ken and I – with a very good support team behind us – did a series of presentations around the US last winter, in the dark days of the recession. When there was all doom and gloom globally and nobody wanted to do anything, we were out in America just doing road shows on the east and west coast. We had a good team of people putting together a collection of potential partners and investors in the company and at one of them Chad was invited through ‘a friend of a friend of a friend’ and although I didn’t get to meet him that night of the presentation, I think Ken shook hands with him – but that was about it. But obviously our presentation was very much in the YouTube mould – guys starting small in the back of an office somewhere, coming up with a great idea, working hard – and that’s to some extent what we hope to be doing.

I think Chad liked that idea and invited us to a working breakfast the next morning in Silicon Valley. Ken and I went there and it went on for about four hours. Chad asked a lot of intelligent questions – the politics, the technology, the people, the television, the media, everything, and we obviously covered all that to his satisfaction because from then on he was pretty much on board with what we wanted to do. He could see that despite Formula One not having a great profile in America right now – for a number of reasons, like no driver, no team, no race right now – its strength as a global television sport in a recession is resilient. There are a lot of statistics that show that live televised sport is resilient to economic downturns and he loved that idea. I think he also loved the idea of Americans taking on the big guns and proving that we can do it. He did believe in us – and here he is, believing in us. I cannot tell you how nice it feels to have somebody as nice as Chad behind us. It’s a great honour and privilege for us being associated with him.

Q: What form will the partnership take exactly? Financial support only, transfer of business know-how, YouTube becoming an integral part of the team’s strategy – or what?
Peter Windsor: Chad’s involvement is much more than just a stakeholder in the team. He is very keen to apply all the things that he has learned about new media and video and the way it works to this amazing television model that we have that is called Formula One. There is an enormous synergy between the two. He doesn’t want to do anything in a rush, but wants to learn about Formula One, to come in and understand where the opportunities are. And – without wanting to sound pretentious – we hope that Chad’s presence in F1 will have a huge impact on the sport in general – not just be a useful, great partner for us, but to be somebody to bring enormous benefits to F1. And we are already starting to see that. We all know that America is an important market for the Formula One industry and to have somebody of Chad’s stature in America – in a part of America where F1 has no real profile at all – standing up and saying ‘I think this is a great sport and we’re going to commit to it’ is a fantastic thing for F1. The fact that Chad Hurley has committed to Formula One was global news and had a big impact in many dimensions.

Q: …and Chad will make sure that you always have enough money in the bank to run the team?
Peter Windsor: Ken and I have never been specific about the details of our budget. All I’m going to say is that we will be very lean and mean. We are not moving away from our business model.

Q: All new sponsors and partners in Formula One racing quickly learn that success does not come overnight, and that sometimes it takes years to start winning. Is Chad Hurley prepared for that?
Peter Windsor: I have to be honest – Ken and I have never said to Chad that it might take years to win races. Ken and I are incredibly hungry for success. We will work very hard, trying to do the best job that we can given the fact that we are a ‘from zero’ start-up operation, doing things in a logical way with the best people we believe we can find, to the budget we believe is the right budget. If you do all that there is half a chance that you will be rewarded with success at a proportional rate!

The first Eagle was the Lotus 38 in the 1965 Indianapolis 500. Gurney then hired the Lotus designer Len Terry to make their own racing car in 1966 which resulted in the Eagle T2G for Champ Car and the Eagle T1G for Formula One. The ‘Eagle’ never won a race, not did it finish in the points and so they exited Formula One in 1968 to concentrate on Champ Car.

USF1 will be the next American team to grace the Formula One paddocks since since the Eagle in 1967. For much of the last 10 months, USF1 has been designing its race cars from its headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina, which is the capital of motor sport in the United States. The unique location of the facility provides the highest concentration of racing-specific suppliers, technical analysis companies and testing partners in the United States.

The hopes and aspirations of many Americans lie in the hands of Ken Anderson and Peter Windsor. Keeping in mind the reduced costs, fairer rules and regulations and the extensive financial backing, the only challenge left is implementing their knowledge and recruiting a champion driver!

So what will Chad Hurley for USF1? Well, what better executive to have bought into a US formula one than Chad! A man who helped found a video social media phenomenon that sold for $1.65bn just 17 months after launching could help build (or rebuild) the image of Formula One in the United States. Will we see YouTube logos on the side of the USF1 race cars in 2010?

Chad Hurlet Invests In USF1

Chad had this to say about the purchase:

“Getting in on the ground floor of a project of this size and scope is a tremendous opportunity, and I look forward to helping shape the USF1 vision and corporate strategy for years to come.”

He won’t admit it, but Bernie Ecclestone knows all too well that Formula 1 must succeed in America to get true world wide recognition of the sport. Hurley’s potential contribution to Formula One will help bring the commercial and social side of Formula One to the masses.

“This is a great day for USF1,” said Peter Windsor, sporting director for USF1. “Chad’s commitment to this team is vital and his visionary expertise and leadership will help steer us into the future as we look to attract best-in-class sponsors, drivers, employees and fans in our quest to compete at the highest level of motorsports.”

One thing is for certain, Chad will be a door opener for corporate sponsorship and promotional media to finally put Formula One a mainstream US sport.

The base for the F1 Team will be in Charlotte, North Carolina on the north side of town near Speed TV’s headquarters. Peter explains that their approach to financing a F1 team will be substantially different from the current status quo in Formula One. Most Formula One Teams are either financed by a billionaire or a major car manufacturer and I suspect that they will rely heavily on US businesses and fans of motorsport much like to Nascar business model where they take advantage of the commercial side of the media to finance their operations. Certainly, the largest and most advanced wind tunnel ever built, designed by Ken Anderson himself and located in Concord Charlotte, will play a major part in the development of the USF1 car. The Windshear rolling wind tunnel is used by Nascar, IndyCar and Formula One teams as it is only one of three of it’s kind in the world.

The All-American team will sign two American drivers that have not been announced yet. Many drivers have been thrown about by Windsor and Anderson, including Marco Andretti, Danica Patrick and Scott Speed but no-one knows who will be given the job. Formula One drivers have been getting younger and younger over the years and weight is now more significant than ever before so there may be a lucky young rookie from the open wheeler generation that will be given the nod.

Engines will be powered by Cosworth under a leased contract. This will cut their development costs significantly and make them able to compete and a serious level. In a way, the new Formula One rules implemented in 2008-9 have lended themselves to the entry of a US formula one team as aerodynamics and chassis now play the most important role in determining a successful team. I was hoping that Mercedes would get the contract as it has the torqiest and most reliable engine on the market which gives the advantage to the slower tracks with more corners and leaves the balance and aero package to nail the high speed corners performance.

At last, the United States has entered the Formula One arena!