{"id":47020,"date":"2009-11-22T19:02:00","date_gmt":"2009-11-23T00:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.autoblog.com\/2009\/11\/22\/report-usf1-signs-pay-drive-deal-with-jose-maria-lopez\/"},"modified":"2009-11-22T19:02:00","modified_gmt":"2009-11-23T00:02:00","slug":"report-usf1-signs-pay-drive-deal-with-jose-maria-lopez","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/47020","title":{"rendered":"REPORT: USF1 signs pay-drive deal with Jose Maria Lopez"},"content":{"rendered":"

Filed under: Motorsports<\/a>, Hirings\/Firings\/Layoffs<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Reports circulating the motorsport press indicate that USF1 has signed a provisional contract with Argentine driver Jose Maria Lopez to drive for the new team next season. The arrangement, however, depends on Lopez bringing with him $8 million in sponsorship dollars, of which the young South American reportedly already has 80% in his coffers.<\/p>\n

Lopez has experience in formula racing, but has been off the radar for a few years now. After competing in Formula Renault and Formula 3000, Lopez drove a couple of seasons in the GP2 series and even ran some test sessions for Renault F1 . After that, he returned to Argentina, where he competed in local touring cars and in a few international sports car races.<\/p>\n

Only a few months ago, USF1 team principal Peter Windsor said<\/a> the team would absolutely not take on a driver purely on these financial criteria alone, but after balancing their budget, the nascent American grand prix team has apparently decided otherwise. Meanwhile, the team is said to be considering a number of F1 veterans for the second seat, with a 12-name short list that reportedly includes such names as Villeneuve, Montagny and de la Rosa. So much<\/a> for nurturing American talent<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[Source: Autosport<\/a> and F1-Live<\/a>]<\/p>\n

REPORT: USF1 signs pay-drive deal with Jose Maria Lopez<\/a> originally appeared on Autoblog<\/a> on Sun, 22 Nov 2009 19:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/h6>\n

Permalink<\/a> | Email this<\/a> | Comments<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Filed under: Motorsports, Hirings\/Firings\/Layoffs Reports circulating the motorsport press indicate that USF1 has signed a provisional contract with Argentine driver Jose Maria Lopez to drive for the new team next season. The arrangement, however, depends on Lopez bringing with him $8 million in sponsorship dollars, of which the young South American reportedly already has 80% […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47020\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}