Gene Haas: “Surviving for 5 years will be the goal”
Gene Haas has no illusions; success will not come immediately in Formula 1. However, he believes that entering F1 is a great showcase for his brand.
Gene Haas believes in his Formula 1 team project; for CNN, he explains the objectives of his team, which will join F1 in 2016. For him, the Formula 1 World Championship is a perfect showcase for his company Haas Automation.
« If I can get an extra billion in sales, we will pay whatever the F1 costs. Some teams spend half a billion, some spend $50 million a year. We should be somewhere in the middle of that, » explains Gene Haas.
Gene Haas, whose team will be based in Kannapolis, North Carolina, but will have an office in England near London, would like to achieve the same success as Red Bull Racing, the Austrian team that won 4 consecutive world titles: « It is enough for a brand to be in F1 for it to take on another dimension. »
However, Gene Haas wants to ensure not following the negative example of two teams, Marussia and Caterham, who joined F1 in 2010 but have encountered various difficulties: « I think their biggest problem was trying to be at the forefront too quickly. For us, we want to make sure the cars are operational by January 2016 and we hope to have the chassis assembled by November. »
« We will spend a good amount of time ensuring that we have the right spare parts, that the stands are ready, that the logistics are operational, that the containers are there – everything that will ensure we can get to a race, » he continues regarding the organization of his team.
Haas F1 Team has signed a technical partnership with Ferrari. This means that the Italian firm will supply engines, hybrid gearboxes, and general technical support to the American team: « Ferrari wanted to go beyond just supplying engines and they wanted to help us with the core structures of the car. It is an honor to have Ferrari helping us in this way and we take all the help they can give us because you can’t really do better than Ferrari. »
F1 lags behind NASCAR and IndyCar in terms of viewership in the United States, despite the reintroduction of the United States Grand Prix in 2012, and Haas believes that hiring an American driver could help: « I’m telling you, an American team with an American driver would be a perfect media coup. We would love to do that, but it’s a bit too early to try to predict that. It would be great to have more Americans behind us and supporting us; it would be a huge boost for us. »
« Our goal will be to survive during these first 5 years. I don’t have grand expectations for our beginnings. If we can win one race in these five years, it would be a tremendous success, » he concluded.
