Charlotte-based USF1 isn’t testing, isn’t saying a lot

As Formula One testing continued in Spain on Wednesday and a new season drew closer, Red Bull driver Sebastian Vettel posted the fastest lap.

The English team Lotus made a splash, returning to F1 after 17 seasons and dominating many of the headlines. The new USF1 operation, based in Charlotte, N.C., again dominated the anonymous quotes and whispers.

The first U.S. team to proclaim its entry in Formula One competition for three decades was nowhere to be seen.

On a rainy day and a soaked track, Vettel topped the charts, the Associated Press and others reported. Seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher was sixth fastest with the Mercedes GP entry. Fairuz Fauzy was 11th in a Lotus.

Now back in F1 with Malaysian support, the Lotus team’s racing history is an extremely rich one.

A fraction of that history, but a significant part of the U.S. racing fabric: Lotus founder Colin Chapman, along with American hero Dan Gurney and two-time world champion Jim Clark of Scotland accelerated the revolution at the Indianapolis 500 nearly 50 years ago.

Emboldened by Jack Brabham’s top-10 showing in an underpowered mid-engined Cooper in 1961, Chapman put the Memorial Day weekend classic in his cross hairs.

With thumping Ford power, the nimble Lotus would quickly push the long-dominant Offenhauser roadsters off the Indy grid and out of the picture.

Stock car racing’s stamp was on that revolution as well, with the Stuart, Va.-based Wood Brothers operation recruited to handle the pit work at Indy. Champ car pit stops of the era were yawners compared with what had years earlier become routine in NASCAR racing.

The Woods’ reliability and speed rocked open-wheel racing’s world.

Unfortunately, USF1 appears less and less likely to weave any magic in the heart of stock car racing country and present it on a world stage in 2010.

Formula One chief Bernie Ecclestone has for weeks expressed doubts about USF1, citing sponsorship difficulties.

“I think we won’t see Campos and I don’t think we will see the Americans,” at the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix on March 14, the billionaire boss of F1 told the Sunday Express.

There was no response from team principals Peter Windsor or Ken Anderson to Ecclestone’s claims.

It was now being widely reported that YouTube founder Chad Hurley has withdrawn his support. He is said to be talking with established F1 teams.

Argentine driver Jose Maria Lopez, signed only last month, appears to be looking, too.

Martin Urruty of the Argentine sports newspaper Diario Ole, told ThatsRacin.com on Wednesday that Lopez had met with Windsor. An account on the web site of cable TV’s Speed also noted the meeting.

Additionally, Brian Bonner, USF1′s head of business development, has left, SpeedTV.com reported. The site also noted that the team’s Charlotte building is for sale, but said it holds a long-term lease.

And still, nothing from Windsor, an alumnus of Speed’s F1 coverage, or Anderson a designer. The most recent post on USF1′s site is a Jan. 25 item about the signing of Lopez.

The silence contrasts sharply with the noise made when Windsor and Anderson proclaimed their intentions a year ago.

The names of NASCAR standout Kyle Busch and Danica Patrick were bandied about.

More recently, the team’s defenders talked about plans to test a car at Barber Motorsports Park in Alabama. Never happened, Viv Bernstein reported in a blog on nytimes.com. And no test has been scheduled, the longtime racing writer says.

“The bottom line is really simple: Sponsor money didn’t come through the way it was supposed to,” Bernstein quotes an anonymous source.

“They’re having trouble making payroll, they’re having trouble paying suppliers, and that’s the situation they find themselves in,” the source said.

With preseason testing in Spain, where the new team says it’s European base will be, there is still no USF1 car.

Another source told Bernstein the team might buy a car rather than build its own. That way, USF1 could still have a place on the season-opening grid.

Swell.

Fans and even some of the financial supporters of the first team carrying the American flag into Formula One competition for 30-something seasons will apparently have to adjust their expectations.

They might have thought they were getting a chance to cheer, maybe even chant “USA!, USA!, USA!” It looks more like Darrell Waltrip just paid Carl Long for a starting position in a race he would have otherwise had no business running.

But at least Waltrip would be willing to talk about it.

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