Jeff Olson

Special for USA TODAY Sports

Austin, TEXAS — Gene Haas made the rounds Saturday in the paddock at Circuit of the Americas, enthusiastically shaking hands and attempting to convince people in the business of Formula One that an American race team will succeed.

The past, the present and the future perhaps aren't looking kindly upon his plan, but Haas is getting the pieces and finances in place for a 2016 launch of Haas F1 Team.

"We're just getting around the garage," Haas told USA TODAY Sports after a day of meeting with F1 officials, manufacturers and team principals Saturday. "We had several people from different teams come up and shake hands and introduce themselves. We're just becoming more noticed around here. It's going to be a quick year next year, and I want to make sure people know who we are."

Haas already has a technical partnership in place with Ferrari, and he says things are moving forward with the plan for a team headquarters in Kannapolis, N.C. It's a tough sell in light of the circumstances surrounding Sunday's United States Grand Prix, but Haas remains optimistic.

Two F1 teams, citing financial difficulty, dropped out in the week leading up to the USGP. Three others are said to be considering a boycott of Sunday's race, although all three took part in Saturday's qualifying.

"You've got to love controversy, don't you?" Haas said. "There have been 50 years of controversies in the way things have evolved (in F1). Exotic cars and six-wheel cars and 1,000-horsepower cars and (various) rules -- year after year, there is always a pressing event, but that pressing event has been going on for 50 years. This is just one of those pressing events."

Perhaps best known to American race fans as Tony Stewart's partner in Stewart-Haas Racing in NASCAR Sprint Cup, Haas, 61, is the founder of Haas Automation, a computer numerical control machine tool manufacturer.

The last effort by Americans to launch an F1 team failed. In 2010, former Haas CNC Racing technical director Ken Anderson and former Williams and Ferrari manager Peter Windsor attempted to form USF1 Team, but it fell apart before getting to the racetrack.

Haas said he isn't concerned that his project won't work. Originally scheduled to launch next season, he postponed the launch earlier this year to 2016.

"I dont have any second thoughts about it," Haas said. "If anything, it seems like a natural progression with what I've done in NASCAR and with my company. This is a natural event to go on in the international market with international racing."

The concern over smaller teams being outspent by manufacturer-based teams is the topic of conversation this weekend. Haas says he's still organizing the funding but he's approaching it from the perspective of an experienced race team owner.

"It's somewhat unknown," he said. "Unlimited budgets have a tendency to become exceeded, but we know what the numbers are. I think we can be a lot more conservative with our money and get a lot more value out of it than a businessman who comes in here and thinks, 'I'm going to have a Formula One team as a hobby.' That's not what I'm planning on doing."

An American driver hasn't raced in F1 since Scott Speed in 2007, but Haas says he isn't looking specifically for American drivers, instead leaning toward drivers with F1 experience. At first, anyway.

"As a start-up team, we'd probably be looking at an experienced driver," he said. "That would give us what we need. We need someone who has driven these cars, with the KERS (kinetic energy recovery system) and the hybrid turbine system. We'd need someone like that who could help us sort the car out. But as time goes on, as we develop drivers, that might be a good opportunity for an American to come along."

Given the current issues of F1 and the struggles of some of its teams, Haas thinks he could be in good position to find talent, especially experienced F1 engineers.

"We have a lot of interest because we're a new team and some of the other teams are struggling," Haas said. "There's a lot of talent available out there. It's just a matter of finding the right people who can do what we want to do."