Danica Patrick is battling to secure a race drive with Team USF1 for 2010, as the outfit prepares for its first year in Formula 1.
The IndyCar Series racer faces plenty of competition for one of the two race drives with the new team, but she seems to be a strong position.
“We’re getting near to the point where we start looking at drivers, and Danica is on our list for sure, because she’s the best-placed American in the leading single-seater championship of the United States,” Team USF1’s sporting director, Peter Windsor, told GPWeek. “She’s going a really great job.
“There are some other great drivers out there: Marco Andretti, Graham Rahal, Ryan Hunter-Reay, Jonathan Summerton... the list goes on. There are some really good guys and we’ve got to start focusing on that.
“It’s not going to be easy for us but we do have an opportunity to give a young American a chance that they would never have had in a million years with any other F1team.”
Windsor is not overly concerned with the current battle ongoing in F1, with the Formula One Teams’ Association (FOTA) threatening to break away from the FIA in order to create its own championship.
“I think we’re a long way from two championships being reality and at the moment the only game on the table is the FIA championship,” he said.
“Formula 1 is a very changeable business and as a new team coming into the sport, having the entry is a great thing, we’re not at the moment saying these are the regulations and this is the car we’re building to the regulations.
“We are open to the political instability and we’re building various iterations of the car based around the ways we think the regulations could go.”