With less than 50 people recruited, Haas F1 has some way to go before they have their full compliment of staff required to run a Formula One team.
The complexity of designing, building and running an F1 car will now becoming apparent to Gene. However, Mr. Haas does not yet realise the importance of consistency and having a joined up PR message.
As TJ13 reported last week in “To ‘B’ team or not”, that Haas was happy to be described as a Ferrari ‘B’ team during the avalanche of publicity he was receiving last summer. Now Haas’ team principal is vehemently denying this: “I do not understand the meaning of the word ‘B-team’,” said Gunther Steiner.
On the issue of Haas F1 drivers for 2016, Steiner also stated, “our plan is to be clear of talks by August/September then announce them.”
Haas now contradicts his team principal as Adam Cooper reports him stating: “You can’t really sign up a driver until you get near the end of the season.”
It could be Gene doesn’t realise the F1 season runs to the end of November. Whatever the explanation, Haas needs to understand the attention his fledging F1 team will receive when the cars finally hit the asphalt will be immense.
If the messages from Gene and the team are inconsistent or incoherent, they will quickly be stereotyped as the ‘new kids on the block’, but without any ‘street cred.’
Well, the drivers they are after probably won’t be signed up by September anyway…
You mean Hamilton ? 😉
D’oh… that was meant as a reply to Iestyn..
Judge – It appears that the whole point of this article may not be valid.
Below is the full quote of Mr. Haas by Adam Cooper. Note the last sentence:
“You can’t really sign up a driver until you get near the end of the season. Because you don’t really know who’s going to be available. We’re certainly not going to start off with a novice driver that has no experience in F1. The timing is what it is. It’s going to be sometime during the end of the summer, when people start moving around.”
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