FORMULA ONE - F1: US F1 Was Embarrassing Says Lopez

Formula 1

F1: US F1 Was Embarrassing Says Lopez

Argentine driver Jose Maria Lopez is still upset about the US F1 project that never panned out...

Adam Cooper | http://www.speedtv.com | Posted July 15, 2010 Balen (BEL)

Jose Maria Lopez hopes to find a Formula One seat for next year. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

Jose Maria Lopez says he was embarrassed to be involved with the failed US F1 project.

The Argentine driver was announced by the team after co-founder Peter Windsor met the country’s president in January. Days later it became apparent that the project was in trouble.

“At the time I felt terrible,” Lopez told SPEED.com on a visit to the British GP. “I was lucky to have the opportunity, but the way that everything went put me and the people working with me in an embarrassing situation. They met the president, they promised us everything. All the time we were asking if they will make it. All the time they would say, 'No problem. We’re going to make it.'

“They said we were going to be in the first race, and they didn’t make it all. It was disappointed because while I didn’t spend too much time with the team, I built a little bit of a relationship with everybody there.”

Lopez said it wasn’t yet clear if he will see the money that was paid up front.

“I don’t know; there are people working on that," he said. "I think at the end of the day they could have told us the truth before. They knew that they were not going to make it, but they kept saying to us they could do it, and we trusted them. They didn’t tell us the truth.”

F1 RaceCast Online! Follow Formula One live online timing & scoring, practice, qualifying, race coverage, commentary and more on SPEED.com!

Lopez, who used to be an Renault F1 test driver, hopes to find an F1 seat for next year.

“We still have some support; there are still a lot of people who want me to race in F1. Today we don’t have too many things," he said. "We keep trying because it helped us last year. Even if we didn’t make it we managed to have a lot of contact with people, with a lot of teams.

“Some teams know we are around, and we have people who want to do F1. So we’ll see. There’s nothing today that we can say it’s 50 or 80 or 90 percent.”

Adam Cooper notched up his 25th season as a racing journalist in 2009. Born in London, England, he saw his first F1 race at age 10 in 1976. He began freelancing for Autosport magazine in 1985 and was on the fulltime staff from 1987-92. He then went freelance again, initially spending two years in Japan before following the 1994 Champcar series from a base in Indianapolis. He has not missed a Grand Prix since Suzuka ‘94, a run that has extended to Abu Dhabi ’09. Adam has written books about Eddie Irvine, Piers Courage and Michael Schumacher and hosts a race preview show on Sirius XM. He has written about F1 for SPEEDtv.com since 2005. Check out Adam's Blog or follow him on Twitter