USF1 to Sponsor America's Young Talents

USF1 co-owner Ken Anderson revealed that part of the sponsorship for his and his partner Peter Windsor's team will go to racing programmes helping young talents on their way to F1 stardom. Anderson admitted that, unlike their European counterparts, young American drivers don't have a feeder series of their own in which they can make the transition to F1.

“We're a big country and I think it's fair to say that anything we put our mind to, we end up doing pretty well. We have a big enough pool to do it. If we're taking a flier on a German or Brazilian, why not take a flier on ours,” said Anderson at the unveiling of the USF1 project.

“The ladder (for young drivers) doesn't really exist in the United States right now, as far as Formula One for sure. Part of our sponsorship will go towards helping kids do that. Max (Mosley) has just started F2 which is brilliant for £195,000 and ridiculously cheap compared to GP2 or F3. What better place to send a kid?” added the former Penske technical.

Anderson's partner in the USF1 project, Peter Windsor, believes this is a much wiser view as compared to putting drivers like Danica Patrick or Kyle Busch – that have already had a lot of success in Indy Car and NASCAR already and the prospect of debuting in F1 is not very appealing to then anyway – in an F1 cockpit.

“The concept of taking somebody like Danica to Formula One and being successful with her is mind-blowing. And, equally, taking a NASCAR star driver, putting him into F1 and seeing him do well would be just as pleasurable. Both of them would be great people to talk to. I don't know if Kyle has any interest at all in F1, I don't know if Danica has either for that matter,” argued Windsor.

“Both of those drivers bring with them a lot of reputation and PR, the question is whether that's the right thing for USF1 in the first or second year,” added the former Williams F1 technical.