From what i saw on the RPM segment yesterday of USF1,s facilities, i,m wondering if the rumors about problems with USF1 aren,t true.
Unless everything is top secret there,,I,m a little skeptical about how things are progressing..i,ll have to dis-agree with Steve about how "impressive" the facility is..
what does anyone else think?

There is more that they didn't show, such as the autoclaves which I've seen in still photos elsewhere. They're making fairly substantial parts and they're doing the aero homework. Given that they started from scratch what, ten months ago, I'd cut some slack right now. I imagine if I took a tour through Williams, Red Bull Tech, or Renault and only saw a five axis milling machine or a copule of screens full of CFD it would be anti-climactic or even uniteresting unless there was a rolling chassis somewhere.

Honestly, I was pretty disappointed at the amount juicy stuff shown. When Matchett went to real shops ie Red Bull Tech, it was a lot more interesting.

I have to agree with tiger...we got very tight shots of the inside of some rooms...some inexpensive PC's, a couple of really nice machines for sure...

But contrast that footage from Redbull Racing this year by Steve.

It's pretty scary...

Usually when you do a piece like this, you don't start in an office, you start with pulling up to the facility and do a shot in the reception area...and the opening segment in the barren room with a single laptop and a picture of Clark on a barren wall was silly...."we happen to have some cameras here"...

tigertankmk4 - 02 November 2009 10:23 AM

From what i saw on the RPM segment yesterday of USF1,s facilities, i,m wondering if the rumors about problems with USF1 aren,t true.
Unless everything is top secret there,,I,m a little skeptical about how things are progressing..i,ll have to dis-agree with Steve about how "impressive" the facility is..
what does anyone else think?

Matchett was at the facility and has been to many others. He's aware of the monumental task in front of these people. If he deemed it impressive, I'll take his word for it. Why would he be disingenuous?

I have to say that I have less confidence in USF1 after that little segment. Peter seemed uncomfortable. While looking at the computer with the "exclusion boxes", Steve said, "I haven't seen that before". I think he has seen it. Peter also put him on the spot, just as he himself was put on the spot when asked to visit on air. Peter asked, "What do you think?". Steve answered, "Impressive". But I think he wasn't really impressed, based purely on non-verbal behavior.

Having not seen further imagery of their facility besides what was shown yesterday, I must admit I was thinking the same thing, and was surprised nobody commented sooner. It was very underwhelming and seemed quite contrived. For all we know it could have been one of Kenny's facilities that they hung up a few F1 renderings and photos. The camera shot at the beginning didn't even pan low enough to see Windsor's desk because it was probably a few stacked boxes, hell you could see his Ikea cabinets still in the flat-packs on the floor.

Onto the machine shop, which they only showed in whole for a split second. Then they had the fake machining going on, however there was coolant pooled in that aluminum part on the 5 axis, so it looks like they actually made it. A single complex part can take a day or 2 of continuous machining so I would think they would have all machines going already producing copies of base chassis parts.

Lastly, besides the quick shot of that document cover, there was no sign of USF1 anywhere. Now they could be looking to change their logo or something along those lines, but personally I would have expected to see a nice big painted logo on those white brick walls.

Having said all that, I want them to succeed and I really hope that was just a bad representation of their true facility. If I was looking at it as an investor I would be a little worried, it makes that scale model Lotus produced look not so trivial after all.


Stone the crows, do you have a link for those pictures, I would be curious to see them, thanks.

The segment WAS weird, not sure if it was deliberately staged that way to be deceptive, or if the segment was thought up at the last minute as a nod to Windsor's leaving...more fodder for the boards until next spring, eh?

Can't wait for a visit to the Campos factory.. as I'm sure their facilities will be a match for RedBull Racing.

Maybe even better..

yeah what a bunch of hacks, they had the audacity to sign a driver!

I'd say my reaction was somewhere between surprised and shocked. Closer to later, actually.