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Haas in no hurry to sign F1 drivers

Gene Haas says he is in no hurry to sign up drivers for the Formula 1 programme that kicks off in 2016.

Esteban Gutierrez and Gene Haas and Joe Custer, Stewart Haas Racing Vice President and Gunther Steiner

Esteban Gutierrez and Gene Haas and Joe Custer, Stewart Haas Racing Vice President and Gunther Steiner

XPB Images

Guenther Steiner, Haas F1 Team Principal with Joe Custer, Stewart Haas Racing Vice President
Gene Haas, Haas Automotion President
(L to R): Maurizio Arrivabene, Ferrari Team Principal with Guenther Steiner, Haas F1 Team Principal
Raffaele Marciello, Sauber F1 Team Test And Reserve Driver with Guenther Steiner, Haas F1 Team Principal and Claudio Albertini, Ferrari Head of Customer Teams Power Unit Operations
(L to R): Maurizio Arrivabene, Ferrari Team Principal with Guenther Steiner, Haas F1 Team Principal

As its plans progress and the new team gains credibility, more drivers are indicating an interest – and Haas agrees that bigger names are likely to join that list as time goes by.

"You can't really sign up a driver until you get near the end of the season," he told Motorsport.com.

"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.

'Serious' drivers

"As time goes on and people see the organisation building up that's going to lead to them taking us seriously, and we obviously need serious drivers.

"I think there's still a lot of skepticism as to whether we'll even be there or not, but as we get closer and closer it's up to us to defuse that and say, 'Hey, we're coming.'"

Haas F1's prospects have clearly been boosted by the improvement in the form of the Ferrari power unit that the team will use next year, although the team boss says he was confident that would happen.

"I've been in racing long enough to know that Ferrari is not going to be kept down! We kind of knew that going into it that Ferrari was certainly going to pick up the pace.

"We are very grateful to Ferrari, we hope that we offer something to Ferrari too, because I think there's no plan for how new teams start.

"Over the last five years four teams started and I don't think too many of them survived. There's obviously a need for some way of starting teams. This is just another variation on that." 

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