Gene Haas confirms that he will only arrive in F1 in 2016

Gene Haas – after indicating that the arrival of his team in F1 would likely be postponed – officially confirmed the information to the magazine Forbes: « The plan is absolutely to launch in 2016. We are fully committed to that. I don’t think there’s any doubt. On a personal level, I would have really liked to race in 2015. It was hard to be there and say no. Believe me, I really wanted to go. The first year is always difficult, but I think by waiting a year, we’ll probably only have six months that will be difficult because we’ll be better prepared. »

This announcement is not a big surprise since six months to build a team from scratch seemed extremely short, especially when choosing to settle in the United States.

This additional year of preparation will allow him to fully enjoy his new facilities dedicated to F1, planned at the historic headquarters of his NASCAR team: « I think we will be a better team because we will have more time to plan everything and we will be able to do much more engineering in Kannapolis. We have been working on a building there since November of last year to expand the NASCAR team. We will open the NASCAR part in a month. A month later, the Formula One site will be operational. »

Setting up in England rather than in Italy

At the origin of his project, Gene Haas intended to establish himself in Milan to be closer to Ferrari and Dallara, which he planned to use as suppliers. However, this project faces tax difficulties: « We had a timetable, and it seems that all the events, for different reasons, have been delayed by a month. The latest delay is related to the fact that we had planned to establish ourselves in Milan. But the accountants came back to us saying that it wasn’t really possible to settle in Milan because it would have meant we had a tax presence there. Everything became complicated. So we decided that it was better to be 100% sure before racing rather than rush and be unable to race. »

The American team has therefore redirected its research to establish its European facilities. Naturally, it turned to England, which is the historical heart of F1, much like North Carolina is for NASCAR: « We are still looking to establish ourselves in Europe. England seems to be the best place since that is where most of the Formula One teams are. We cannot have anything in Italy due to tax presence, but obviously, Formula One as such is in the south of England. So it could be a potential site. »

The big advantage of being present in England is that it could more easily attract qualified staff, who would not need to relocate when changing employers.

Visiting Montreal

The Formula One Circus is indeed setting up in North America this weekend for the Canadian Grand Prix. Gene Haas isn’t going to miss such an opportunity to gain firsthand experience of how F1 teams operate: « I plan to go to Montreal. We are going to learn a lot about logistics. This weekend, we will ask a lot of questions, such as: “How do you transport this container from here to there? What is the logistics? Where are the planes, and what do they look like?” We will look at the spare parts that teams bring, especially the equipment in the pit and support areas, and get an idea of their IT infrastructure and pits. We are quite familiar with this kind of thing in NASCAR, but here it is completely different and new. So we need to find the suppliers who build all this. »

Obviously, he is the first to acknowledge that this represents a huge investment to buy everything, but he plans to make a difference with the novelty of all his equipment: « We are looking for carriers, infrastructures, and stands. We have to buy everything since we are starting from scratch. If you already had everything in place, it would make a big difference. We have nothing at the moment. The good news is that everything will be new. »

A solution to save on this expense would be to buy an already existing team that is financially struggling. A team like Caterham, which is not officially for sale, seems to be an ideal candidate for such an investment…

With the participation of www.Racingbusiness.fr