Gene Haas has vowed to fight on for formula one, despite Bernie Ecclestone saying a 2015 team entry for the American foray is “most unlikely”.<\/p>\n
Even despite his fortune, his proven record as a Nascar team co-owner and his state of the art wind tunnel and related businesses, F1 supremo Ecclestone said recently he doubts 61-year-old Haas is really prepared to spend what it takes at the pinnacle of motor sport.<\/p>\n
“Somebody can have 10 billion in the bank but it doesn’t mean they are going to spend it,” Ecclestone was quoted by F1 business journalist Caroline Reid.<\/p>\n
Haas confirmed on Monday that Haas Racing Development has already paid the $5000 application fee to the FIA, after the governing body invited interest in the vacant 2015 team slot.<\/p>\n
But “Mr Ecclestone doesn’t think I have enough money to do this,” Haas is quoted by the Associated Press, admitting the 83-year-old Briton was being “brutally honest” when he issued the warning.<\/p>\n
“He doesn’t think we will get the license.\u00a0 So my chances probably aren’t that great of a shot,” he added, revealing that he has also had a few meetings with Ecclestone.<\/p>\n
Vowing to double the profits of his machine manufacturer Haas Automation to $2 billion a year, however, many believe that if any racing enthusiast has the money for F1, it is the Californian.<\/p>\n
So why Ecclestone’s pessimism?<\/p>\n
“That’s a little bit of a letdown,” Haas admitted, according to USA Today.<\/p>\n
“I respect the man, and it’s a very difficult sport, the highest echelon of racing in the world.\u00a0 They want teams that compete and stay for 10 years.<\/p>\n
“If Mr Ecclestone is saying we don’t have a chance of getting a license, it would be foolish to continue.\u00a0 I’m not sure what he’s trying to tell us.\u00a0 Maybe that it’s a very difficult sport.<\/p>\n
“We’ve submitted information.\u00a0 Maybe we don’t have what they want.<\/p>\n
“I don’t think it’s black and white,” he continued.\u00a0 “It’s their process.\u00a0 You have to be respectful of that.\u00a0 If you push it, seems it doesn’t work at all.”<\/p>\n
It could be that Ecclestone’s comments are the result of Haas vowing to go his own way, despite the fact existing competitive teams require mammoth annual budgets.<\/p>\n
“The big teams spend $200 to $300 million but have 10 engineers working on one fitting,” said Haas.\u00a0 “I don’t think we’d approach it that way.\u00a0 But I can be naive, too.<\/p>\n
“I just think we as Americans have the ability to take complex machines and figure out how to make them go fast without all the complexity.\u00a0 I could be wrong, but I have that gut feeling,” he explained.<\/p>\n
“Everybody said I’m out of my mind,” Haas continued, “but the shock was when Mr Ecclestone said I don’t think these guys know what they’re doing.\u00a0 That’s tough to overcome.<\/p>\n
“I won’t know until I try,” he is quoted by the Charlotte Observer.\u00a0 “If you don’t try, you’ll never fail.”<\/p>\n
\u00a9 RIF | GMM<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Gene Haas has vowed to fight on for formula one, despite Bernie Ecclestone saying a 2015 team entry for the American foray is “most unlikely”. Even despite his fortune, his proven record as a Nascar team co-owner and his state of the art wind tunnel and related businesses, F1 supremo Ecclestone said recently he doubts …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,5262,5340,4754,4784],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20833"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20833"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20833\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20834,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20833\/revisions\/20834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}