USF1: Plan is for an 'American world champion'

America’s most-read newspaper covers the USF1 team today — and for American F1 fans, that’s news enough to lead a post here.

There are plenty of other details in the USA Today coverage, including the arguably “big” news that ties Nascar bad boy Kyle Busch to the team. (A quick note, although right now USA Today has a slightly higher circulation than the Wall St. Journal, I think it is about to fall to No. 2 when stats come out next week.)

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“If he wanted to drive for us in 2011, we’d certainly be keen on that,” [Peter] Windsor says. “I think there’ll be a lot of speculation about that as time goes on. If I was Kyle, I’d be saying to myself, yeah, those guys all talk the talk, let’s see what they do, let’s see what the car’s like. Let’s see what the race shop is like. Fair enough. We’re going to do a good job. I know when Kyle gets to see it, I’m pretty sure it’ll get his pulse rate going.”

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That said, Windsor now is admitting that for at least 2010, USF1 will be fielding non-American drivers:

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“We’ll try to get the best drivers we can for sure footing in 2010, and I only say that because there are no American drivers, sadly, eligible to compete in F1 from an administrative point of view,” Windsor says. “You need an F1 superlicense. It’s basically if you’ve won an international championship single-seater race, you get a superlicense. No American has done that the last 12 months. That’s not an indictment of American motorsports, it’s just the way it’s gone.

“There’s a lot of young American talent, and sooner or later you go IRL or NASCAR. There doesn’t seem to be a road into F1 for young Americans. So we’ll be that team. Suddenly a young kid wins in Indy Lights, Nationwide or Trucks, now they’ll think, ‘US F1, I’ll give those guys a ring, maybe they’ll find a team I can drive for in Europe.”

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Still, Windsor makes a bold statement about the team’s goal: “”The plan is to be an American brand that creates the next American world champion… That’s the raison d’etre of this team.”

He also permanently squashes any thought that Danica Patrick will ever suit up in F1: “I have respect for Danica, but it’s not the right time for her to jump out of something going pretty well to go to Formula One, particularly a new team. That’s a big ask from her. She has such a good deal going on anyway.”

The main story in this coverage touches on familiar territory: How F1 isn’t big in the U.S. but much of the technology comes from here, etc. etc. There also is a lengthy Q & A with Chad Hurley, the youtube co-founder who is thus far the biggest backer of the team.

What catches my eye from Hurley is:

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Q: What are your business goals with US F1? Are you in it to make money or raise your profile?

A: Personally, beyond the interest, I do think at the end of day that this is a great business. Approaching it as an entrepreneur, I see it as a great challenge but also a great opportunity. Really trying to do things grass roots or operating as a start-up is that we were going to try to use as little as possible for the maximum output or outcome. Not necessarily being super familiar with world of F1, but the one thing everyone relates it to is extreme cost. I think coming from the tech world and YouTube specifically, that’s how people looked at the video industry when we got started. It was extremely expensive to store and serve this content, but when we were involved on the front lines, we were able to build very efficient architecture and do it at the fraction of the cost of what the industry was speculating about our cost. I think we’ll have the same opportunity with US F1 to be superefficient, do things very cost effectively and hopefully be extremely competitive at the same time. I don’t think doing things more cost effectively means you’ll be any less competitive. Potentially, we’ll be a lot smarter with how we build the organization and do our development. And again, it’s a lot easier when you’re starting from scratch then trying to modify an existing structure that’s existed for years. And really when you build a large organization that thrives off of inefficiency, everyone wants to protect their jobs and doesn’t necessarily want to make things any easier because that means reducing the department or a need. It’s not necessarily in the best interests of the individuals that already hold those positions. We can address all of that from Day 1 and not necessarily have those roadblocks in the way when we move forward in the future.

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Hurley also waxes poetic about social media, but they first ought to just get a real website together. [It does now at least have a nice graphic.]

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