Lopez sings praises of Renault drivers

Renault co-owner Gerard Lopez has heaped praise on Robert Kubica and Vitaly Petrov, as well as the team as a whole, following the Enstone squad’s impressive start to the season.

The former world champion squad has begun its new era under the majority control of Lopez’s Genii Capital investment group in promising fashion, Kubica having claimed a second-place finish in Australia already which has helped the team to fifth in the constructors’ standings.

Kubica was hired to spearhead the team’s resurgence following the departure of Fernando Alonso and Lopez has no doubt that the team has a future world champion on its books.

“I knew Robert from BMW, even before he was an F1 [race] driver there,” Lopez told speedtv.com.

“I’m a very strong believer that on pure speed and character he’s one of the few that deserves a world championship at some time.”

The Spanish entrepreneur also praised rookie Petrov’s performance at the last round in China when the Russian recovered from a spin to claim his first Formula 1 points in seventh in the rain-hit race.

“I’m pleased with Vitaly, and how he recovered from a rookie mistake, when he spun out,” Lopez added.

“Rain is a great leveller, and rain tells you a lot about drivers, because it levels the playing field much more. So the job he did was amazing in rain conditions.”

Renault laid the foundations for its fifth and seventh place finishes in Shanghai when it was the only team to keep both of its cars out on slick tyres in the early showery conditions – the kind of correct calls Lopez believes the team has been making since Bahrain.

“It was a good race for us,” said Lopez.

“The basis was the fact that again the team made no mistakes, and made the right decisions, and they’ve been doing that since the beginning of the season.”

The Enstone team will continue its aggressive development path with a further package of upgrades for Barcelona next week and Lopez says ensuring it starts races further up the grid is its next target.

“In qualifying Robert is pretty much where we are supposed to be right now, between sixth and eighth probably, with Vitaly scratching around for 10th, which is great for a rookie obviously," he added.

"In the races we’re better. The car is where we expected in the races, and we’re working very hard to get it up to speed in qualifying.”

Lopez critical of US F1 team

Jose Maria Lopez has criticised the US F1 team after his dream move into Formula 1 collapsed when the outfit aborted its plans to enter in 2010.

The 26-year-old Argentine was announced as a US F1 driver in January but just one month later he was in talks for the reserve seat at Campos (now HRT) with growing uncertainty over US F1's ability to make the grid.

Lopez's manager, Felipe McGough, hit out at US F1 team boss Ken Anderson in the wake of the team's withdrawal at the beginning of March, and Lopez himself now says he believes he was misled by the team.

"I find it hard to say that we did it wrong," he told a news conference hosted by the Argentine Automobile Club. "I think we put too much trust in what people were telling us.

"As soon as I arrived in Charlotte in February, I realised that everything they were saying was not true. What happened to us was unthinkable: in 60 years of Formula 1 it never happened that a team signed up and didn't make it. They hid things from us."

Lopez is still hopeful of breaking into Formula 1 and is targeting a testing role.

"My idea is to go on, not lay my head down," he said. "Everybody knows what happened. We are going to go on, even though as of today we have no firm project. Of course it's not the same anymore. There have been many falls and I don't know how long I can take it, or my family.

"It [testing] would be the easiest thing because racing in F1 is almost impossible this year. At some point I will be making the decisions."

Lopez's manager slams US F1 boss

Jose Maria Lopez's manager Felipe McGough has criticised US F1 team boss Ken Anderson, saying he is the main culprit for the American squad failing to reach the Formula 1 grid.

"The main culprit of all this is Ken Anderson," McGough told Argentina's FOX Sports in a telephone interview.

"These people fooled the FIA, FOTA and all the teams, FOM, all the employees they hired, 'Pechito' Lopez, and Milos Pavlovic, the other driver they had signed to be in the project.

"It's not that they fooled us only. The situation of US F1 in Europe is some sort of scandal amongst teams because it makes F1 looks very bad. Argentina is just a small part of the problem, but it's a very, very big for Formula 1."

McGough said he was not aware of any problems with the team when Lopez signed a deal to race with it.

He added: "We signed the deal just 48 hours after the FIA sent an inspector to Charlotte and confirmed that the project was fully underway."

McGough said Lopez had been finally released from his contract and was now set to become Hispania Racing's reserve driver.

"We spent all day talking with the team," he added. "We finally managed to get released from the contract with the US F1 team. We had a meeting with Ken Anderson, with Chad Hurley's representatives, with Peter Windsor and with team's lawyers.

"It was a very complex situation because they had not breached the contract, but we knew they would not make it to Bahrain. So we had to find a solution so Jose Maria would not be tied to the team and he could find an alternative.

"And that's what we achieved after a lot of hours of negotiation."

McGough claimed Anderson or sporting director Peter Windsor had promised to travel to Argentina to apologise and to offer an explanation about the situation.

Lopez manager admits Campos talks

Jose Maria Lopez's manager Felipe McGough says talks are underway between Campos owner Jose Ramon Carabante and US F1 investor Chad Hurley to secure a deal that will ensure Lopez can race in Formula 1 this year.

With uncertainty surrounding US F1's plans, the American team's already-signed driver Lopez has been linked to a switch to Campos. McGough confirmed that Carabante, who took sole control of Campos last week, and entrepreneur Hurley were trying to find a solution for Lopez.

"The two groups that talked today will do everything possible so that 'Pechito' can be in Formula 1," McGough told Argentina's Diario Hoy.

"Both Chad Hurley and Jose Carabante talked for several hours to find a solution for the budget issues both teams have. For us this merger is very important as it works in favour of Lopez racing this year.

"We have been doing everything possible and we haven't taken any false steps. The financial difficulties, and the trust we had put after the recognition from the FIA have made things complicated and we must accept that [US F1's] cars will not be ready for Bahrain.

"Right now things are in the hands of the two investing groups. They have the final word. We have hopeful we will reach a resolution to come back to Argentina with good news about Lopez."

Financial services group Locstein, which had been in talks with US F1 about a sponsorship deal, has also announced that it will not pursue a relationship with the team due to its current difficulties.

"As a matter of course, Locstein evaluates a variety of business opportunities around the globe, including sponsorship in Formula 1 racing," said a Locstein statement.

"Locstein did engage US F1 Team regarding sponsorship, but when it was apparent that the team was not able to participate in the entire 2010 season, Locstein elected to withdraw from further involvement with US F1.

"Locstein wishes the US F1 organisation the best of luck in their endeavours."

Lopez would welcome Valles at US F1

Jose Maria Lopez says he would welcome Adrian Valles as his team-mate at the US F1 team, the Spaniard having been linked with the drive earlier this month.

Argentinean Lopez is the only driver confirmed at the American squad, who is facing a race against time to make it to the first race in Bahrain next month.

Lopez reckons Valles, who won the Superleague championship with Liverpool last year, would be a strong team-mate.

"I would very much like to have Adrian as a team-mate for a lot of reasons," Lopez told Spanish daily Marca.

"First, he is young, talented and with a lot of experience. Second, because I know him from the time when we were together in the Renault development programme."

He added: "It's hard to talk about another driver. A lot of times they have to be judged by the car they are driving or by the team with which they have been, but Adrian has done well in all the categories he has been in, and that shows he is a talented driver."

Although US F1 looks set to miss all the European pre-season tests, Lopez believes joining a new team was still a good decision.

"Of course it's worth it," he said. "I've fought a lot to achieve this and I've been through a lot of things. It's a chance to return to the top category in motorsport.

"I'm going to give 100 per cent to stay in Formula 1."

Lopez has power of a nation behind him

This is a big week in Formula 1. The new Mercedes team was launched on Monday, and new cars from Ferrari and McLaren are due to break cover on Thursday and Friday. But another development that has made less of an impact could prove a seminal moment in a different way.

The announcement on Tuesday that the little-known Argentine Jose Maria Lopez will drive for the new US F1 team in 2010 has made minimal impact compared to the fanfare afforded Mercedes's public presentation of their new livery and Michael Schumacher.

The general perception will be that this is just another pay-driver getting a seat with a struggling team, neither of which are likely to make much impact in 2010.

That assessment may well turn out to be factually correct - but the Lopez deal is rather more interesting than that. He has secured his drive thanks to backing from the government of Argentina itself. His appointment was announced by the president, Crista Fernandez de Kirchner.

As far as I am aware, this is the first time a national government has ever financially supported a driver's entry into F1 to any significant degree.

"He has got the nation behind him," US F1 sporting director Peter Windsor told me from Buenos Aires on Wednesday. "This has all come through the president's office. The government decided to get behind him and take him into F1, and when they did that a lot of other companies looked at it and decided to do the same. It's snowballed since then."



This is information that a lot of struggling young racers around the world, scrabbling to raise the money to further their careers, will find quite hard to take.

That, though, does not make it any less remarkable.

Argentina has had a very tough time economically in the last decade and, although things are improving from the lows of 2001, times are still hard for many Argentines. F1's popularity remains high, though - even though it is 12 years since the country had a race or a driver.

"Obviously football is huge, but motorsport is the number two sport in Argentina," Windsor says, "even with Juan Martin del Potro and Angel Cabrera winning majors in tennis and golf. Jose is huge here.

"A lot of people will say, 'Oh, it's a driver with money.' But that sidesteps the issues of how much time it takes to raise that money - and it's still government money they are spending. I'm very proud of that.

"My feeling is that the thinking is: 'Let's take a driver into F1; it'll be good for the country's morale.'

"They want to win in big sports - that's very important, just as it is in Australia. Here, it doesn't take much to trigger a spark of enthusiasm. Who's to say that the fact they are in economic recovery isn't even more reason to get behind a driver? It's a very optimistic attitude - very different from Europe where it tends to be all doom and gloom."

The chances of Lopez winning in F1, of course, are not great, at least in the immediate future.

US F1 are battling to get their debut car ready. Windsor says he and co-owner Ken Anderson haven't yet decided whether they will make any of the four pre-season tests in Europe, but he says it's likely the car will run only in the US. He insists, though, that they will be ready for the first race in Bahrain on 14 March, while admitting: "It's going to be tight."

And then there's the question of whether Lopez is any good. He did not exactly set the world on fire in the European feeder formulae, but Windsor says he always believed Lopez had talent; the respected driver coach Rob Wilson agrees - and so does Argentine F1 legend Carlos Reutemann.

Reutemann, now an influential name in Kirchner's Peronist party, is an old friend of Windsor from the 1970s and early '80s, when Reutemann was one of F1's leading drivers and Windsor a journalist. Although Windsor says the now Argentine senator - a member of Kirchner's party, but not exactly an ally - "is not really involved at all, other than he thinks Jose is very talented and very fast".

Whatever, all this is further evidence of a major shift that appears to be happening in F1 - as the car manufacturers leave, teams are increasingly taking on national identities, whether by accident or design.

So Brawn has been bought out by Mercedes, who are running two German drivers in Schumacher and Nico Rosberg. McLaren have two English drivers, Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button. Ferrari have long been considered in Italy as the national team, even if they do little to promote Italian drivers. The new Lotus outfit are effectively a Malaysian team. Then there's Force India - explicitly Indian, even if based at Silverstone. And now US F1, with backing from the Argentine government.

Windsor says he and Anderson chose that name for their team because of exactly this shift.

"The thinking was always, it's beyond car companies and the future will probably be an international element," he says. "And it's possible if we weren't called US F1, we wouldn't be here."

It looks incongruous, then, that there will not be an American driver in the team, but Windsor says the explanation for that is simple.

"No American driver has [the necessary F1] super licence," he says, "apart from maybe [GP3 driver] Alexander Rossi - but that was very recent.

"We had to draw a line. [IndyCar front-runners] Graham Rahal and Marco Andretti haven't got one. They may have been given one, but we couldn't take the risk of finding in the third week of February that they'd been turned down.

"We want to be in F1 for a long time. We'll build a stable platform and then do it [get an American driver] - we've got plenty of time."

"We're going to be doing quite a lot to promote American drivers this year, which we'll announce quite soon. But even though we're US F1, we don't have to have American drivers. We're in a global market place - there are also people who want to promote their company in the US. F1 is very international, but laying claim to a country is quite cool."

Windsor and his team can now lay claim to two.

US F1 Team announces Jose Maria Lopez as driver for 2010 season

Peter Windsor, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner and José Maria Lopez
Argentine star to race in US F1’s Debut Campaign

Charlotte, N.C. (Jan. 25, 2010) – US F1 Team announced today that they have signed the former Renault F1 Team test driver, Jose Maria "Pechito" Lopez (26), to race with them in the 2010 FIA Formula One World Championship. Lopez will be the 24th Argentine* to race in Formula One, sustaining a heritage that began sixty years ago when Juan Manuel Fangio and Froilan "Pepe" Gonzalez took the F1 world by storm.

"Securing 'Pechito' Lopez for our debut season has been a goal of ours for a long time," said US F1 Team Executive Vice President Peter Windsor. "We've been following his career since he dominated the Renault V6 Championship in 2003 and we're thrilled to have him on board as we return America to Formula One. Lopez is a consummate professional and born leader. The most revealing thing about his character was how he handled the disappointment of not racing for Renault after three years of testing with them in F1. Instead of moping around and feeling sorry for himself, he returned to Argentina and totally dominated the local scene, winning 38 races and three championships. He became a major star as a result and, in turn, the Argentine nation – a country where F1 is second only to soccer - has got behind him." As proof of that, Lopez's US F1 contract was officially announced by the President of Argentina, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, in the Casa Rosada (Government House) in Buenos Aires on the afternoon of January 25.

After meeting Jose Maria and Windsor, the President commented: "The Argentine government is very happy to get behind this exciting new project and we wish Jose Maria and the team all the best for the 2010 season."

"This is a truly memorable day for me, my family and the people of Argentina," said Lopez, who has more than 6,000 kilometers of F1 test experience. "I have been working towards this day for much of my life and I can't thank Peter and Ken [Anderson] enough for this opportunity. Of course a new F1 team faces many challenges but our goal is to improve with each race and build a foundation that will eventually see this team competing for wins and championships."

After winning in karts all over the world from the age of seven – Lopez was leading Lewis Hamilton in the world final in Japan when his chain broke - he switched to race cars in Europe in 2001 . He won the 2002 Italian Formula Renault Championship with four wins, five poles and three podiums and in European Formula Renault he scored two wins, two poles and a podium. He dominated the European Formula Renault V6 Championship in 2003 (five wins, eight poles, seven podiums) and in one season of F3000 and two in GP2 he scored a win (Barcelona), seven podiums and a pole. As a contracted Renault driver, he also completed thousands of miles in the F1 car, focusing mainly on shake-downs and starts but also completing simulated race distances with compromised set-ups.

Disappointed not be given the opportunity to race in F1, Jose returned to Argentina in 2007. His positive, super-professional approach resulted in three championships, 38 wins and 36 pole positions. As a result, Jose became a hero in his own country and regained the momentum he needed to focus once again on F1.

US F1 Team, which is located in Charlotte, North Carolina, the motorsports capital of the United States, will be the only American-based team on the grid in 2010 and the first in more than 40 years. Team Principal, President and CEO Ken Anderson said finding the right drivers was a major part of forming US F1 Team.

"So many things go into starting a Formula One team from scratch," Anderson said. "You can nail every step along the way but if you don't have the right guys in the seats, everything else is for naught. With Jose Maria Lopez we have further positioned ourselves for a successful 2010 debut campaign."

Lopez joins US F1 for 2010

Team US F1 has signed former Renault test driver Jose Maria Lopez to join its debut season in Formula 1.

The Argentinean's move into F1 with the Charlotte-based outfit was announced by the President of his native country, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, in Buenos Aires late on Monday evening.

Speaking about his step up to F1, Lopez said: "This is a truly memorable day for me, my family and the people of Argentina.

"I have been working towards this day for much of my life and I can't thank Peter and Ken [Anderson] enough for this opportunity. Of course a new F1 team faces many challenges but our goal is to improve with each race and build a foundation that will eventually see this team competing for wins and championships."

US F1 executive vice president Peter Windsor said he had been following Lopez's career for several years.

"Securing 'Pechito' Lopez for our debut season has been a goal of ours for a long time," he said. "We've been following his career since he dominated the Renault V6 Championship in 2003 and we're thrilled to have him on board as we return America to Formula 1.

"Lopez is a consummate professional and born leader. The most revealing thing about his character was how he handled the disappointment of not racing for Renault after three years of testing with them in F1.

"Instead of moping around and feeling sorry for himself, he returned to Argentina and totally dominated the local scene, winning 38 races and three championships. He became a major star as a result and, in turn, the Argentine nation - a country where F1 is second only to soccer - has got behind him."

Lopez enjoyed a successful kart career and won several championships in junior single seaters, including the 2002 Italian Formula Renault Championship and the European Formula Renault V6 Championship in 2003.

He was a race winner in GP2, triumphing at Barcelona in 2005, and he also he completed several thousands of miles in F1 machinery in his test driver role with Renault in 2003 before returning to race action in touring cars in his native Argentina.

Lopez admits interest in Renault

Gerard Lopez has confirmed for the first time that he is interested in purchasing the Renault Formula 1 team.

AUTOSPORT revealed last week that Lopez was one of the main parties interested in getting involved in a takeover of the French car manufacturer's F1 outfit - with Prodrive also seeking a deal.

And although Lopez has so far stayed out of the spotlight on the matter, he spoke about it for the first time at the Motor Sport Business Forum in Monaco on Wednesday.

"We see the whole environment as providing an opportunity," he said. "We've been involved in Formula 1 for some time as friends for some people, but never thought about getting more heavily involved than that.

"The situation is such right now that it provides an opportunity for new teams and new investors - it's not a time of uncertainty but a time of change.

"Times of change usually provide an entry point. We believe there is a chance to enter the sport and build a platform that sort of has to reinvent itself. If we were to become part of F1 we could be part of that reinvention."

AUTOSPORT understands that if Lopez's bid is successful the team will continue to run under the 'Renault' moniker rather than have a new identity.

"If we were to do a deal, we would still be basing ourselves as a constructor's team," said Lopez. "That's a different kind of business from a start-up. For us, what would be important is to provide stability over time. The business opportunities in F1 lie very rarely in making money out of your team; they should lie in making money out of the business platform that you have.

"Put any seasoned executive into F1 and they turn into a big kid, essentially. It makes them much more approachable. So for us, F1 is an excellent business-to-business platform."