In an interview for Reuters news agency, the former F1 team boss said he finds it hard to believe that an F1 team based in the US can attract North American investors, especially since we're talking about a sport that hasn't managed to reach the hearts of US fans ahead of domestic series like NASCAR and IRL. Teams in the aforementioned championships are finding a hard time securing some sponsors of their own already.
Also, the fact that Formula 1 has scraped off the American Grand Prix from their 2009/10 calendar is no good news either, as far as sponsorship is concerned.
“I personally can't see how they are going to pull a major sponsor or investor out of the U.S. when there's no race (there). Very few Americans care terribly much about Formula One... and I certainly found it harder to get money over here than in Europe. Indeed, impossible,” said Stoddart in the aforementioned interview.
He also gave his own personal view on what exactly a new team owner should do in order to run a successful operation in Formula 1. And basing the team's headquarters in the UK tops the “to do” list by far.
“I would have said that if you are going to operate successfully, first of all start thinking about a base in the UK. Unless you have massive budgets like Ferrari or Toyota, then you kind of need to be in the UK. Most of the people come out of the UK, they don't really want to live in other countries,” added Stoddart.
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