(by Speed staff speedtv.com 3-6-09)
USF1 sporting director Peter Windsor has moved to clarify stories suggesting that the team has been told to change its name by Formula One Management.
Stories have circulated in recent days that FOM objected to the team's use of the trademarked phrase "F1" in their title, but speaking exclusively to SPEEDtv.com, Windsor has diffused the story, saying that it was never the team's intention to compete under such a name, and instead they plan on competing under the name US Grand Prix Engineering.
"It’s not true as written" said Windsor in reference to the original story. "Our original logo was basically a placemark for a project in progress. Now that we’re in business, it’s important to create a logo and team name that is fully in accordance with FOM rules. This we are now doing."
"In the meantime, we’re diverting web traffic to one of the many domain names we registered some five years ago. We kinda liked USGPE because of the early FW days (referring to Williams Grand Prix Engineering). We’ll be back soon – bigger and better."
Windsor also added that he has been encouraged by the response to the team since they formally announced their plans to compete live on SPEED on February 24. "The response to the announcement was overwhelmingly positive" said the former Williams and Ferrari team manager. "Over 4000 articles were published about us in the month of February alone, and the site was getting something like 350 hits per second during and after the show. For a 'minority sport', F1 in the US seems to be alive and well!"
