Category Archives: F1 News

The latest statement from Caterham F1 says that the team is now being run by the administrator of Caterham Sports, and confirms that the intention is to carry on competing.

The team has to send its cars and equipment to Austin this weekend.

The statement said: “Following a request of yesterday evening at 21.55hrs CET from Caterham Sports Limited’s administrators and the legal advisors of Mr Tony Fernandes’ related EXIM Bank, representatives of 1MRT/Caterham F1 Team have agreed, with all rights reserved, to hand-over management of the Caterham F1 Team to the administrator Mr Finbarr O’Connell in the higher interest of allowing the team to continue operating and preparing for the next events.”

Tony Fernandes has hit back in the war of words over Caterham F1 by claiming that the buyers – Swiss consortium Engavest – have not fulfilled their part of the deal.

Engavest said today that Fernandes was still responsible for Caterham F1 as he had failed to transfer the shares.

Fernandes said in a statement: “In June 2014, I decided, together with my co-shareholders, to sell my stake in the Caterham F1 team. We agreed in good faith to sell the shares to a Swiss company named ‘Engavest’ on the basis that Engavest undertook to pay all of the existing and future creditors, including the staff. The continued payment of staff and creditors was so important to me that I ensured that the shares would not be transferred to the new buyers unless they complied with this condition.

“Sadly, Engavest has failed to comply with any of the conditions in the agreement and Caterham Sports Ltd (the UK operating company of the F1 team) has had to be put into administration by the bank, with large sums owing to numerous creditors. Our agreement with Engavest was very clear: there was no legal obligation to transfer the shares to them unless certain conditions – which included paying creditors – were met. Those conditions have not been met. Our lawyers have asked Engavest several times to comply with these conditions but they have failed to engage.

“If you agree to buy a business, you must pay its bills. They have breached that promise and now, sadly, it is others such as the employees and the fans of the Caterham F1 team that will suffer if the team ceases to race. I sincerely hope that this will not be the case and that a solution can be found.”

Meanwhile Graham Macdonald, Caterham Group CEO, said: “We genuinely believed, at the time, that the sale of the team was the best route for the staff and creditors of the Company, as we felt it secured its long term future. The whole agreement with Engavest was based around a low consideration for the business, with easy payment terms so that creditors and staff could be paid.

“The buyers were made fully aware at the time of all outstanding liabilities. However, it appears to me that they never had any intention of paying these liabilities. I go on to question how anyone who was interested in the long term future of the business would appoint one of their cleaners – Constantin Cojocar – as the sole director and shareholder of the UK operating Company?

“We continue to see claims and counter claims from the F1 team which are totally unfounded. Not only have they failed to pay the creditors (and have even left our shareholders to pay some of the creditors on their behalf), but they have failed to pay us anything for use of our factory and site, or anything for the use our brand name. In short the new owners have paid us nothing and now the administrators have been appointed they want to walk away from their liabilities.”

The previous owners of the Caterham F1 team failed to pay over £256,000 in legal fees before the team was sold to a consortium in June, court documents show.

The fees represent one of a number of unpaid bills left behind by the previous regime that the new owners have had to deal with.

Legal firm Macfarlanes LLP has taken steps to recover the money plus interest in an action against both 1Malaysia Racing Team and a second defendant, Caterham Sports.

Most of the bills relate to Caterham suppliers Aerolab and Fondtech, and a legal battle with Force India over IP.

A formal claim from Macfarlanes states: “In and between May 2010 and December 2013 the Claimant provided legal services to the First and Second Defendants at the request of the Defendants or one of them.

“Between 30 January 2013 and 18 December 2013, the Claimant sent 18 invoices to the First Defendant to a value of £456,927.73 which remain either unpaid or partly unpaid. A list of the said invoices is served herewith as Schedule 1.

“The Defendants have from time to time made part payments, but despite demand having been made, there remains due and owing a balance of £256,917.54.

“The Claimant seeks the recovery of the said sum of £256,917.54 owed by the First Defendant and/or Second Defendant.

“The Claimants also seek interest pursuant to section 35A of the Senior Courts Act 1981 at the rate of 8% per annum from 30 days after the date of each individual invoice in the sum of £26,794.77 as particularised in Schedule 2 served herewith.”

Fernando Alonso dropped from second to fourth after the safety car in Singapore, and yet the Spaniard still pronounced himself happy with how the weekend unfolded for Ferrari.

His race started with a trip across the first corner, after which he ceded a place to Sebastian Vettel.

“I made a mistake in the first corner and I went straight,” he said. “I gave back one position because I thought that was more or less fair. I was waiting for instructions from the team, on lap two they told me that race direction was OK with only one position, and we kept pushing all the race through. We were probably secure in second position after the second stop, with a good margin and a good pace. The safety car probably didn’t come in a good moment.”

Unlike the Red Bulls Alonso had to pit as he hadn’t yet used the soft tyre, and he felt that he could have have extended his previous stint, as Lewis Hamilton did before making the switch.

“With Hamilton it worked to stay out with the strategy, but he has two seconds margin, and it’s easier to open the gap with that margin. Probably we could not make it. I think the strategy was good, probably a little bit unlucky with the moment.

“But fighting with the leaders is something that we normally miss this year, so definitely a step forward this weekend. We have to have our feet on the ground, knowing that we’ve been not competitive this year. It’s not that from our race to another we will become competitive. If we are moving in the right direction, yes. Not enough probably, but I’m quite happy.”

Lewis Hamilton’s victory in Singapore put him in the lead of the World Championship with five races to go, albeit by the slender margin of just three points over team mate Nico Rosberg.

Hamilton had to work hard for his win however after the safety car cost him his advantage, and left him with the job of building up a gap after the restart.

“Coming here and to the last six races with a great race in Monza, knowing that we had a car to compete here, obviously yesterday in qualifying it was very close between everyone so I didn’t really know what to expect today,” said Hamilton. “But I got off cleanly. Of course it would have been a hardcore race if Nico was in the race with me, as the car was feeling very good and we would have been very strong.”

Lewis admitted that he wasn’t sure how the strategy would unfold after the safety car, when he had to build a gap and pit for the prime tyre, while his main rivals could run to the flag.

“I think for me I was a bit unaware of what I needed to do. That second-to-last stint, I extended it as long as I could and then they said ‘we need 27s.’ And that was still six seconds I needed more, and my tyres were dropping off, so I didn’t really understand why. And I was also nervous that, if the Safety Car came out, would that cause me big problems? So anyway, fortunately we got to where I needed to go and we pitted.

“I came out, and I saw Sebastian going past but straight away I knew they were obviously doing a two-stop, I would have good pace. So, took it easy the first lap. It was actually a bit of a tight gap, maybe I should have overtaken him somewhere else. but fortunately Sebastian was very fair and I got by. After that it was quite straightforward. Amazing job from the team and the guys back at the factory. The car was really spectacular in the race.”

Regarding the championship he said: “I came here hoping to really gain those seven points, and anything more than that was just a bonus, so today, of course, those extra points are a huge help. That’s several DNFs we’ve had now on either car and we want to continue getting those one-twos still.

“I know that the team will not be 100 percent happy today because we want to win collectively, we want to get those one-twos, we want to be the dominant team all together, so by not getting that result, they’ll be going back to the drawing board trying to figure out what happened. They’re constantly coming up to things and perhaps other people are starting to be a bit more reliable than us so that’s an area that we can still definitely improve on.”