Gene Haas has confirmed that his new Formula 1 team will make its debut in 2016.
Haas Formula was originally granted entry for 2015 in April, but it was decided that joining the F1 grid next season would be too soon.
Speaking to Forbes, he said the decision to delay the team's launch by one year was a difficult one, but it will mean it is better prepared for its first season in the sport.
His original plan was to base the design and aerodynamics departments at the team's head office in North Carolina, alongside the NASCAR outfit that he co-owns, and the engine department in Milan.
However, setting up a European base in Italy has proved to be a stumbling block and Haas, who will attend this weekend's Canadian Grand Prix, revealed that locating it in England is a possibility. Building work at the main headquarters is going ahead as scheduled and the F1 site looks set to be completed in around two months.
"The plan is absolutely to launch in 2016 and we are fully committed to that. I don’t think there is any doubt about that whatsoever," he said. "I think we will be a better team because we will have more time to plan and we will be able to do a lot more engineering in Kannapolis.
"We have been working on a building there since November of last year as part of the expansion of the NASCAR team. In about a month we will have the NASCAR site open then about a month later we will have the Formula One site operational so we can go in there.
"From a personal standpoint, I really would have liked to go racing in 2015. It was hard to sit there and say no. Trust me, I really wanted to go. The first year is always going to be going to be tough but I think that by waiting a year we will probably only have six months of it being really tough because we will be better prepared."
Commenting on the problems with the European site, he said: "We had a timetable and it seemed that all the events were being delayed, for whatever reason, by a month or so. The final delay was that we were planning on opening a shop in Milan and then it came back from accountants that you can’t really have a presence in Milan because that will cause a tax presence so it just started getting convoluted.
"We decided that it would be better to be 100% sure we are going to make the race rather than scramble and not make the race. Our plan is to have aero in Charlotte and engine work in Europe.
"We are still looking at having a shop in Europe. England maybe would be the place to go because that’s where most of the Formula One teams are. We can’t do anything in Italy because of the tax presence there but you obviously have Formula One itself in the south of England so that would be a potential site."
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Speaking to Forbes, he said the decision to delay the team's launch by one year was a difficult one, but it will mean it is better prepared for its first season in the sport.
His original plan was to base the design and aerodynamics departments at the team's head office in North Carolina, alongside the NASCAR outfit that he co-owns, and the engine department in Milan.
However, setting up a European base in Italy has proved to be a stumbling block and Haas, who will attend this weekend's Canadian Grand Prix, revealed that locating it in England is a possibility. Building work at the main headquarters is going ahead as scheduled and the F1 site looks set to be completed in around two months.
"The plan is absolutely to launch in 2016 and we are fully committed to that. I don’t think there is any doubt about that whatsoever," he said. "I think we will be a better team because we will have more time to plan and we will be able to do a lot more engineering in Kannapolis.
"We have been working on a building there since November of last year as part of the expansion of the NASCAR team. In about a month we will have the NASCAR site open then about a month later we will have the Formula One site operational so we can go in there.
"From a personal standpoint, I really would have liked to go racing in 2015. It was hard to sit there and say no. Trust me, I really wanted to go. The first year is always going to be going to be tough but I think that by waiting a year we will probably only have six months of it being really tough because we will be better prepared."
Commenting on the problems with the European site, he said: "We had a timetable and it seemed that all the events were being delayed, for whatever reason, by a month or so. The final delay was that we were planning on opening a shop in Milan and then it came back from accountants that you can’t really have a presence in Milan because that will cause a tax presence so it just started getting convoluted.
"We decided that it would be better to be 100% sure we are going to make the race rather than scramble and not make the race. Our plan is to have aero in Charlotte and engine work in Europe.
"We are still looking at having a shop in Europe. England maybe would be the place to go because that’s where most of the Formula One teams are. We can’t do anything in Italy because of the tax presence there but you obviously have Formula One itself in the south of England so that would be a potential site."
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