SEPTEMBER 28, 2002

A new American team?

American racing legends Dan Gurney and Phil Hill have revealed that they have plans to launch an all-American Formula 1 team for the 2003 season. The project has been in the pipeline for a couple of years.

"We'll know by the middle of October," Gurney said at Indianapolis. "It would be American ownership and it would be more than one person. I'd like it to be a US Formula 1 team with US drivers. The timing is perfect for it to happen. It's going to require certain dominoes to start falling pretty quickly but it would be a monumental situation. One of the keys right now is engines. We have a commitment - not a contract - from Ford Cosworth and we could have a signed contract in a couple of weeks' time."

The obvious route for such a program would be for the consortium to buy Arrows but the value of the team is dropping all the time as engineers leave. The option would be to start a completely new team but the drawback of this route would be that it would require a $48m deposit and that there would be no TV benefits for at least three seasons.

It is believed therefore that this is some kind of arrangement between Red Bull and the Americans involving Arrows or the remains of the team. Whether or not it will happen is another matter because there is much contention over whether the team still has any rights to the benefits laid down in the Concorde Agreement. Some of the other F1 teams think not.