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
XPB Images
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."
Be part of Motorsport community
Join the conversationShare Or Save This Story
Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
Top Comments