Like you Ned, I expect USF1 to struggle mightily as any new team would (and should) if the stalwarts of the sport are doing their jobs.

However, unlike you, their struggles will not be because of their lack of nifty shop uniforms or the fact they’re housed in a 40k sq. foot dry-walled facilty (versus a glass walled uber-shop overlooking a man made lake).

Rather, it’s much more simple. That is, COMMON SENSE tells us they’ll struggle as a newbie start-up in an immensely competitive business/sport with an enormously steep technological learning curve. It’s how they respond to challenges as the season progresses and beyond that will be the true measure of their success or failure. Inanimate uniforms and year one garage facilities will have very little to do with it..that much is certain.

The McLaren Technology Centre was only finished in 2003, 40 years after the team was first started, and cost 300 million pounds to build.

Why would a new team spend 300 million pounds on a headquarters, when that 300 million pounds could be used on something more worthwhile, like I dunno, designing a car that is fast. Maybe in 40 years, USF1, if successful might have an equally as impressive headquarters.

Finally I’m not sure if you understand how design engineering work, but the computers are just a tool, like a hammer is to carpenter. It’s the people operating the tool that determine whether the end result is any good. In the right hands a $50 hammer can produce results equally as good as $100 hammer. Same goes with engineers using computers and software packages. To me it sounds like USF1 might just know how to effectively use the tools that they have.

http://www.usgpe.com/index.html

As others have said, their approach to car building, or even housing/operating the team, may be different from the classical F1 model. But Americans tend to think that form follows function, and to build a car that runs on petrol and motor oil, they tend to think more in terms of cinder block walls and concrete floors for their garages, rather than glass and porcelain & alabaster(though I admit the Macca digs are quite pretty).

Their facility is, I’m sure, smaller than Macca’s, but as GMan & others so rightly point out, the area in which they have located is rife with automotive specialty companies & facilities. (As well as some very nice lakes.) The Windshear wind tunnel facility, for those of you who don’t know, is one of the premier facilities in the world, the only rolling-road wind tunnel in the Americas, and one of only three such facilities in the world.

I think US-F1 is in good hands, and I’ll trust Ken and Peter to get it to the grid. And I’m sure Peter will remind the boys to not scratch their bums or pick their noses in the paddock–well, at least not while the cameras are on.