Caterham has played down suggestions that the team has reached a crisis point amid reports of a meeting between staff members and team principal Manfredi Ravetto today.
A source close to the team told this writer: “The meeting was called by Manfredi yesterday morning for lunchtime today to tell the company what was happening. He gave the same speech to the race team last weekend, essentially that at the end of June the investors had bought a runaway, driverless train with all employees aboard.
“It’s now the end of September and the train has a driver on board who has control, but efforts to stabilise it are being threatened by ‘surprises.’ Everybody knows the picture is not pretty, and nothing has been hidden.
“They were also told that work on the 2015 car continues with a further wind tunnel session at Toyota starting Monday and we will be on the grid in Melbourne in 2015 if we all pull together. He also confirmed that the wages had been paid today, three days early.”
The ‘surprises’ referred to are believed to include unpaid bills left behind by the previous owners, and which are only now coming to light.
Meanwhile yesterday the team sent its demo car to an event in Jerusalem.
Adam Cooper's F1 Blog 
2 words “due diligence”, I fail to believe that anyone putting up the cash they would have spent to buy the team had no idea that they were to inherit unpaid bills to the level that would jeopardize the businesses ability to continue trading. If these bills are, as said, a surprise I’d expect a swift law suit against the former owners.
Exactly.
It would appear from Tony’s rush to exit F1, that he’s no different from his countryman who dumped on his employees when he exited his ailing airline.
Many companies are bought for $1 and assume the debt of the former owners. It is literally their business and no one else’s (until 9 months after the end of the trading year). The new owners are keeping a team going that would otherwise have been shut. Sure, it appears they didn’t follow procedure for redundancies, but on balance I think they deserve support to run the team as a business rather than a vanity project.
Vanity then explains why certain ‘sponsorship’ logos have disappeared along with Tony.
Paid 3 days early? I’ve just checked the bank online, and I’ve not been paid yet, so I don’t know where good old Manfreddi has sent it…… ????
Phoned a couple of people who are still at Caterham, and they’ve not been paid 3 days early either……hmmm
Based on the appearance of this year’s car alone the team should be euthanized. Harsh? Maybe, but that car has to be one of the ugliest the grid has ever seen. Yes, fast is beautiful, that beast is obviously neither.