USF1 not ready for season start

The beleaguered USF1 team has admitted for the first time that they will not be ready to compete at the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix and have in fact asked the sport’s governing body - the FIA - if they can make their debut at the fourth round of the championship.

“We’re working with the FIA to clarify how many races we can miss,” Ken Anderson told the New York Times. “In an ideal world, we can miss the first four races and show up in Barcelona.”

Anderson believes that the team can miss races without penalty due to a clause in the concorde agreement, something recently refuted by the FIA.

"From a sporting and regulatory point of view, each team that has registered for the championship is obliged to take part in every event of the season," a statement from the FIA read this month. "Any failure to take part, even for just one championship event, would constitute an infringement both of the concorde agreement and the FIA regulations."

Anderson believes that the FIA is in a position to help the struggling team regardless of the statement issued earlier this month.

"Why would they give us a franchise and just, the first time there’s a bump in the road, yank it and put it out of business," hen questioned. "That’s definitely not the message that I’m getting from them. They want to help us, not shut us down.”

Amid rumours that contracted driver Jose Maria Lopez is all set to take his substantial financial backing to the Campos Meta team, Anderson admitted that this is a possibility.

“I’m sure he’s weighing his options as well," he said.

USF1 is now waiting to hear from the FIA if it will be granted a late entry into the championship, but with StefanGP nearly set to run for the first time, most believe that the Serbian entry will be given the nod for Bahrain and beyond.