The USF1 project was officially launched this evening at a press conference live on the American channel SpeedTV, marking the beginning of the entity as it strives to make it to the F1 grid in 2010. Although rumours of the team were only made public earlier this month, the original idea of a US team has been in the melting pot for a number of years, while work to get the operation off the ground has been afoot since mid-2008.

As previously revealed, the project is headed by Ken Anderson and Peter Windsor, who will take up the respective roles of Team Principal and Sporting Director at USF1, with the hope of employing a mainly American workforce of over 100 people, including American drivers.

Over the duration of the press conference on SpeedTv today, Anderson and Windsor said they were confident they could succeed, in spite of the current economic slowdown, with the capital already in place. Although the team is yet to find an engine supplier, the chiefs confirmed that they will be writing to all current suppliers about a possible deal from 2010, with a year's supply of powerplants and gearboxes set to cost a combined total of $6.5m thanks to the previously-agreed cost-cutting measures. The team already has a total of four investors on-board to kick-start proceedings.

“We've set some unbelievably steep hills to climb in the recession, we just wanted to sell off a small part of the team, and I'm pleased to say that we've done that and we're now two guys that can say we're going to do a Formula 1 team - because we've got the capital to do it,” said Windsor at today's press conference.

“For those out there who say 'where's all the money, where's the huge facility, where's all the money falling out of the sky?' - that isn't ever going to happen with USF1. We've always had a very different approach.”

Windsor and Anderson also dismissed suggestions that being based in Charlotte, North Carolina would be a major disadvantage, being so far from Europe at the Formula One epicentre. “Most of the technology in Formula 1 comes from the United States to begin with,” said Anderson “As of next year less than half the races will be on the [European] continent, so there are less races there.

“The cost of doing business in the United States is significantly cheaper than Europe, and there are a lot of good people here. Whether you're going to Australia from here or England is kind of a moot point.”

However, Windsor did confirm that the team would have a base in Europe to house their test team, trucks, motorhome and other equipment. “We want to have a logistics base in Europe, for obvious reasons. And it will be exactly that — it'll be a base for the trucks, the motorhome, the pit equipment, and a testing base for the winter,” confirmed Windsor. “We need to decide where that's going to be by about September and be setting it up by October, November, December.”