Lopez: US F1 didn’t tell the truth

Jose Maria Lopez says that US F1 management didn’t tell him the truth and admits that his short involvement with the failed team was ’embarrassing.’

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

Lopez went to the British GP with his manager Victor Rosso in attempt to find an opportunity for nxet season.

“At the time I felt terrible,” Lopez told this blog. “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 year clear if he will see the money that was already paid.

“I don’t know, there are people working on that. 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.”

Lopez, who used to be a 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. 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%.”