Ken Anderson was an engineer at Penske Racing throughout the 1980’s until leaving to join Ligier in 1989. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

For the 2010 season, Anderson is counting on another dramatic change in the FIA’s approach to stay on an even footing with the established powers.

“Next year is going to be a paradigm shift to narrow front tires and no re-fueling,” said Anderson. “We’ve got an 1100-pound car and we’re starting with 350 pounds of fuel. That’s the biggest change since ‘94. I think there’s going to be a lot of people caught out by that. We’ve concentrated on the things we can control.”

A Cosworth V-8 will power USF1. The fact Cosworth decided to return to F1 for the first time since 2006 to compete against major automotive manufacturers is another sign of the changing times, where the emphasis will be on innovative technology without huge budgets.

Despite squawking in Europe about issues such as the mandatory crash testing, Anderson has outlined a schedule that calls for the final crash tests to fall in late December or early January. That leaves more time for design, although less time to actually build the car. The first official test sanctioned by the FIA, which restricts testing, is anticipated in the second week of February.

“Anybody’s that’s telling you that they passed the crash test in October stopped development in August,” said Anderson. “I would say it’s pretty normal for a team to be crash testing a month before the first race. That’s because you want to be in the wind tunnel to see if the development and the shape is working. Once you sign off on the crash test, that’s it. You’re locked in.”

To those outside the realm of NASCAR teams, the density of technical resources in the Charlotte area is not well known. But Anderson anticipates he’ll be able to keep his costs down by hiring out certain services and avoiding heavy capital costs for things such as wind tunnels, testing equipment and the massive computer capacity needed for design and race simulations.

“You can swing a cat and hit 10 seven-post rigs here,” said Anderson. He plans to use the full-scale, moving ground plane facility at the Windshear Wind Tunnel once the car is built as well as the Kinetics & Compliance machines at Morse Measurements, whose founder Phil Morse is now the vehicle dynamicist for US F1.

Anderson is using the computers at Corvid Technologies in nearby Mooresville, N.C. for the extensive numbers crunching necessary to CFD analysis. Anderson continues to search for downforce and a lower center of gravity before ever committing to the actual structure of the car via the computer.

Corvid was founded by Dr. Eric Warren and is an integral part of GM’s support for its teams in NASCAR and the Corvette Racing factory team. Warren, formerly the technical director at Ray Evernham Motorsports and Michael Waltrip Racing, is another example of Anderson’s ability to recruit locally as well as from Europe. Warren has joined USF1 as the chief aerodynamicist.

It was back in the early 1980’s as a service provider himself that Anderson got his start in Grand Prix racing. The designer and chief engineer at Penske Racing Shocks, Anderson worked at the Williams Grand Prix Engineering team’s wind tunnel as a technical partner during the development of the Williams chassis from 1985 to 1988.

It was there that he met his future partner at USF1, Peter Windsor, a public relations man at the time, and Ross Brawn. The latter would eventually claim fame as technical director at Ferrari during the Michael Schumacher years before moving to the Honda team in 2008 and then starting up Brawn GP.

“I was working for Penske on shock stuff and I would go over to the wind tunnel every winter,” said Anderson. “I met this wind tunnel machinist, mechanic and all-around good guy named Ross Brawn. We both come from a very similar hands-on approach.”

Having been an engineer at Penske Racing in the glory years of CART throughout the 1980’s until leaving to join Ligier, Anderson got a lot of hands on experience to go with three CART championships and four Indy 500 wins.

Over the course of three decades, he has met a lot of people and gained respect for his knowledge and passion about racing on both sides of the Atlantic. Anderson’s friend Brawn, for example, released research and development chief Brown from his contract early so that he could help Anderson finish the USF1 chassis.

So take Anderson seriously when he says with a wry smile, “We’re putting the band back together.”

Jonathan Ingram has been writing full-time about the world’s major motor racing series and events since 1983 for newspapers, magazines and web sites.

John can be reached at jingram@racintoday.com