GPWizard F1 Forum
F1 News & Discussions => F1 Teams => Topic started by: cosworth151 on December 24, 2014, 05:19:49 PM
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Racecar Engineering is reporting that Gene Haas has purchased the former Marussia facility. He still plans to build the cars at his operation in Kannapolis, North Carolina. The same report states that he might also have obtained the date & designs for Marussia's 2015 car.
http://www.racecar-engineering.com/news/haas-f1-acquires-marussia-factory/
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Sounds like Haas is serious about competing to me.
There's no real way to know if you've got an F1 car until you can compare it to another F1 car. Being able to see how their design stacks up to the Marussia will let them know if they're on the right track, or in over their heads (and resort to using the Marussia design as a basis)
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The Marussia 2014 and the planned 2015 cars were designed to receive Ferrari engines so I guess it's a pretty good starting base for Haas as they will also be using Ferrari power.
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Dallara is supposedly building the chassis. I don't think they will bother with the Marussia cars except for maybe a few reference points, and maybe like you say - to see how the Ferrari might fit in.
It made me wonder a bit though. Is Haas going to have the same relationship with Ferrari, since I suppose the deals were brokered with Luca or more likely his US President Mattiacci, who is also now gone from the company under rather murky circumstances. The other thing is Haas may be getting wary of running a Ferrari with the team in such a mess. I'm sure Haas is hoping for some kind of Ferrari miracle next year.
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Dallara is supposedly building the chassis. I don't think they will bother with the Marussia cars except for maybe a few reference points, and maybe like you say - to see how the Ferrari might fit in.
It made me wonder a bit though. Is Haas going to have the same relationship with Ferrari, since I suppose the deals were brokered with Luca or more likely his US President Mattiacci, who is also now gone from the company under rather murky circumstances. The other thing is Haas may be getting wary of running a Ferrari with the team in such a mess. I'm sure Haas is hoping for some kind of Ferrari miracle next year.
I presume that Haas is just making sure he gets his foot in the door. I hope that he has watched the tales of Marussia, Lotus and HRT, and has a much better picture of what he's getting into, and what he can expect to accomplish.
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To be honest, if you take away the Bianchi crash, Marussia had a very good season, finishing not only above Caterham but also Sauber, in a dreamy 9th place. I think the company went to administration because all the backing it was getting because of Bianchi was gone, and it suddenly found itself in the hole.
There is a fundamental difference between Marussia & Caterham team from Haas, the former two were sort of launch pad for Virgin Airlines & Air Asia, a sort of advertisement box that ran 300kph, but with Haas there is genuine racing pedigree, though the environment, the circumstance and the politics are much different than where he competed previously, but surely he has the racing DNA, what the other two lacked.
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The loss of Bianchi's backers had little to do with the situation at Marussia. The problem was that the Russian oligarch in charge of the money situation chronically underfunded it for three years. Marussia's creditors have been patient, but with a loss of £30 m per year for the last two years, the problem was always going to come to a head at somewhere about this time. Of course, if they'd been able to keep the wolf from the door until mid-March, the TV money would have helped somewhat, but it's not clear that Bianchi remaining in a position to drive would have helped. I'm sure the Ferrari Driver Academy (the people paying for Bianchi's seat) would have quite happily parked Raffaele Marciello in as a substitute to help out Ferrari, as a race seat at Marussia would have been better preparation for F1 racing than doing some sponsor appearances for Sauber and maybe a few Friday practices...
Unfortunately, backers of sufficient wealth to make up for Marussia not paying sufficient lucre were not forthcoming. Marussia's two drivers between them were bringing about £10 m, so there was a limit to what they could do... ...and remember Max Chilton nearly lost his seat at Spa because of a payment issue - and that Alexander Rossi's sponsors weren't exactly 100% reliable either, leading to him not replacing Max (if you have to have a freebie driver next to Jules, it might as well be the proven one).
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That sums up the issue in a nutshell, lack of funding from Russia. It's a real shame. Just a bit more investment, even just to get the team through to this year, in order to enable them to claim the rewards for ninth place in the championship would have been an immense help.
Haas is trying his best to set up a very solid team; however, I still cannot see it performing much better than any of the other new teams did when they made their debuts in 2010. The sport is just so strongly structured against new teams these days.