Campos Meta Team: Update on Project Progress
Adrian Campos, the owner and team director, states that everyone, at all levels of the team, is doing a very good job and that preparations are on schedule. “Everything is happening exactly as we originally planned,” he affirms. “Sometimes there are difficult moments because we have to start from scratch to develop everything. But, for […]
Adrian Campos, the owner and team director, states that everyone, at all levels of the team, is doing a very good job and that preparations are on schedule. “Everything is happening exactly as we originally planned,” he affirms. “Sometimes there are difficult moments because we have to start from scratch to develop everything. But, for now, everything is okay, and we are on schedule with our program as we hoped. We will be present for the first race, for sure.”
Regarding the team’s organizational chart, Adrian Campos will be the boss, Danielle Audetto and Graham Watson are both mentioned for the manager position, Gabriel Tredozi will be the technical director, Ben Agathangelou is the aero chief and Ian Thompson is the carbon chief, and finally, Jose Ramon Carabante is the financial president.
Daniele Audetto, the team manager, has agreed to reveal some information: “The car is being built in Italy at Dallara,” he explains. “The single-seater is designed, developed, and built by Dallara. The Campos team will run in Valencia, where the GP2 teams are based.” Campos Meta Team operates from three different locations, with Dallara in Italy, Campos in Valencia, and the commercial service in Madrid. To find information on the progress of the single-seater, one has to literally dig, and it turns out that the single-seater should be ready to run by mid-January. The team, which includes about fifty technicians, has already created an initial model used for wind tunnel testing since last July. The team hopes to begin passing the crash tests, mandatory for FIA homologation, in November.
The future single-seater developed by Dallara on behalf of Campos Meta Team will be powered by a Cosworth engine, just like the other three new teams. “We have to accept that we have a contract with Cosworth,” says Daniele Audetto. “There are only 8 engines, so finding reliability will be difficult. But we have confidence that Cosworth does good work. It’s better to be with an independent engine supplier like Cosworth rather than a manufacturer because you never know what might happen with the car manufacturer, as with Honda and BMW.” Daniele Audetto also adds that it was not the FIA that imposed Cosworth engines on the new teams, but that it was simply the only engine available.
On the financial side, the team is actively seeking sponsors and can rely on a driver bringing a significant budget, with Bruno Senna and Vitaly Petrov being the most likely candidates. The Madrid region is willing to assist Campos by offering funds and even a two-lane highway between its different bases, if the team agrees to move the center of its operations to the heart of the Madrid region. The Spanish sponsor Telefonica was in negotiations with Campos, but it currently appears that the talks have failed.
Just like USF1 and Manor (an update on Lotus will be made in the coming days), Campos Meta Team seems relatively solid and will surely be present on the starting grid for the opening race of the 2010 season in Bahrain.
