Jeff Gluck

USA TODAY Sports

CONCORD, N.C. – Gene Haas is confident he'll be able to field a U.S.-based team in Formula One – and it seems as if he'll bring a dose of American swagger with it.

Haas explained his decision to start Haas Formula during a 75-minute news conference Monday at a hotel near the future headquarters of his F1 team – the campus of his Stewart-Haas Racing NASCAR team – and said he was determined to succeed where others had failed. The FIA (Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile) announced it had granted Haas an F1 license last week.

"Sometimes people think the European way of racing is so much more advanced than the Americans," Haas said. "But we're the most advanced country on the planet. So I can't imagine why we can't do it."

Haas and team principal Guenther Steiner didn't have many details to offer; they have yet to determine whether Haas Formula will attempt to race in 2015 or 2016, let alone who will drive the cars or supply the engines.

But Haas believes F1 – the world's most popular form of auto racing – will serve as a launching pad to double the sales of his Haas Automation company, which builds machine tools.

Haas co-owns his NASCAR team with Tony Stewart and employs Danica Patrick, Kevin Harvick and Kurt Busch. NASCAR has helped bolster the company's brand domestically, he said, but stock car racing isn't highly regarded outside the United States.

"From a racing standpoint, nobody in the rest of the world -- or virtually nobody -- knows what NASCAR is, and that's a bad thing for NASCAR," he said. "They have a good, strong domestic base, but in this day and age, I think you've got to be global in everything you do. That's where Formula 1, I think, has a big advantage."

Steiner said a decision as to when the team will field cars could come within the next four weeks. If it's 2015, Haas Formula will have less than nine months to hire personnel, build cars and ready the technology necessary to compete.

The team's technical partner would be Ferrari or Mercedes. As for a driver? Haas said he'd like to hire a veteran F1 driver who currently competes on the circuit and eventually pair him with a young American who could develop over time.

Haas appeared to be half-joking when he said the cost could be "billions and billions" but acknowledged the high cost of F1 racing while insisting the team would stay on a budget.

"This is not going to be a European just-throw-money-at-things-and-go-racing (approach)," Haas said. "This is going to be an American, well-run, efficient organization."

Said Steiner: "I've been in Formula 1. I've seen waste. I've seen how it was done. ... The regulations have changed in our favor. We don't have to reinvent the wheel, because the wheel is there."

To get the team on track, Haas plans to rely on an existing F1 organization for technology -- much like SHR does in NASCAR with Hendrick Motorsports, which supplies chassis and engines. Eventually, Haas Formula could move to developing its own car once the team is up and running.

"It's going to be based on a lot of the technology coming from our partners, to begin with," Haas said. "But as time goes on, we'll learn. We'll figure it out. The car will eventually evolve into our own car, and quite frankly, I think we can beat the Europeans at their own game."

Should he succeed, it will be against expectations and history. It has been more than 50 years since the last American-based F1 team competed; an American-owned team fielded cars out of Europe in 1985-86.

In 2011, the USF1 team announced it would field cars from the United States but never made it to the track before folding. Haas was asked several times why Haas Formula would succeed when USF1 had failed.

Haas cited his experience running a NASCAR team, a Haas-owned rolling-road wind tunnel near the shop and his resources with machine tools. He estimated the team would already have 50% of the parts it needs.

"I'm here to prove we can do it," Haas said. "We can do it with a budget and we can win at it. I'm not saying I'm better than anyone else, I just have a different way of doing it. I wouldn't be doing it if I thought I was going to fail."