Please take note my man. You make a clear and reasoned argument. Yet you fail to take into account several issues. No. 1. This is Formula 1. Secondly This is Formula 1 etc… while I understand your reservations about Team Haas finishing 5th, the fact that the thought crossed your mind makes you seem like your still sucking on your mamas teet. You mention USF1 as a team who made mistakes that Haas can learn from. They are probably the worst funded and researched American team I can think of entering F1. Think more on the huge budgets and research of teams like BAR, and Ford as Jaguar and then we might begin to understand the job ahead of Mr Has. A man who plans to win the F1 world championship in 5-6 years. Your right. It will be fun to watch, and I hope fore the sport he stays in it, but let’s not get our hopes up. Welcome to F1. Watch out, they eat their young here!

Doubtless, F1 engeers look down on NASCAR as some kind of perverse joke, but the technology gap has narrowed substantially in recent years. Both series try to maximize performance within ridiculously strict regulations. The smallest tweaks can create an advantage. Getting Marussia’s factory was a good move. Whether he can use any of their test/development equipment is hard to know. He already has everything he needs in North Carolina, but its probably fully booked for his NASCAR team.
Finally, one hopes Haas’ goals are realistic. Getting a pair of cars to most of the checkered flags, would be a solid success regardless of results. Getting points in a few races would be spectacular. There are currently 10 teams. Merc and Red Bull are clearly out of reach. Just behnd them are the big teams of McLaren and Ferrari who have consistently underachieved the last few years, followed closely by Williams who overachieved this year. Then you have 5 vulnerable teams who have always been a dollar short and a day late. Toro Rosso, Force India, Sauber, Caterham and Marussia. There is no reason well financed, well run and well staffed USA team couldn’t replace Marussia on the grid, and beat the other 4 bottom teams and challenge the top teams anytime they make a mistake. Thus, 5th in the Constructors championship in their first year would have to be considered their ‘stretch goal’. Of course, I would be shocked along with everyone else if they actually did that. On the other hand, that goal has to be achieved in the first few years to justify the effort.
Haas needs a team manager that can attract the best up and coming talent in the pitlane. Then he needs the money to pay them to move to North Carolina. Once there I think they’ll be pleasantly surprised at the size of the NASCAR commuity, and the quality of mechanics and fabricators available to build and test the car under their supervision. The racing engineers/mechanics travel all the time anyway, so they can be based anywhere. However, having an English base will be critical to transfering the culture of F1 to the USA operation. Should be fun to watch.

Lexus raced an LFA at the 24 hrs of Nurburgring, and Lexus models have represented Toyota in SuperGT 500 since 2006 in the form of the SC430 and now the RCF. Lexus has also built a GT3 spec RCF race car, which ART Grand Prix will be using next year in Blancpain. Also, I know of no S-Class racing car, but the AMG C-Coupé does race in DTM against the BMW M4 and Audi RS5.
So I find little to prove that racing pedigree somehow cheapens the image of a luxury brand, at least the Germans and Japanese don’t think so. If Cadillac wants to be taken seriously as a luxury brand, they will need to be taken seriously as a performance marque as well. Their main competition has a reputation for performance cars, and if Cadillac wants to compete with the RCF and M4 and so on, they will need to develop a reputation to match.

Go back to 2005-specification V10 engines. If F1 wants to be green, limit the number of jumbo jets full of equipment that can be shipped to each race. The fuel used by the race cars is trivially small compared to the fuel used by the spectators to get to the race. Maybe that’s their plan– eliminate spectators?