The Manor-Marussia Saga

Would you like to launch Andrea Moda v2.exe?

[PLAY WITH THE BIG BOYS] [SATISFY CREDITORS]

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The second of the class B teams falls in the same season one of them scores their first point. At least Marussia will be joined by Haas.
 

The tweet could well be genuine, there are administrative arrangements to make within F1 and it makes sense that they would be undertaken.

As for the motorsport-total article... christ on a bike. Accusations of document burglaries, fake sound-a-like company names and, overall, a full-on attack on Fernandes from Colin Kolles.

I'm no fan of Kolles, I think he's a complete crook actually, but I don't think he carries the blame here by any means.
 
I think this one is on Fernandes, really. Even before the administrators got involved, Ravetti was talking about how poorly structured the team was.
 
Except for the times where the limit viewing of their articles for the month without having a + sub has been passed.
 
The BBC are now adding to reports that Caterham have been given a 2 race exeat by the Bernster. He hopes everything will "be alright" while the administrators continue their search for interested parties of "substantial means".

Source.
 
Copy and paste post about the Lotus LMP program in WEC. Now why you ask? It has links to Caterham and specifically Colin Kolles... Who I have a feeling is trying to get away from some people.

Last year Kodewa ran under the Lotus name the T128 LMP2 car or at least until Le Mans when both cars had parts seized and impounded by french courts, following a reported lawsuit by co-builders ADESS. They did run last minute after a settlement but it wouldn't have helped. They stated ambitions to run an LMP1-L this year, which they indeed have debuted at Texas. Now hang with me from here.

wec-shanghai-2013-31-lotus-lotus-t128-kevin-weeda-christophe-bouchut-vitantonio-liuzzi.jpg

(Lotus T128 in 2013)


The car debuted under the Lotus T129 banner, a direct reference obviously to T128, at COTA. But after COTA had a total name change, now being called the CLM P1/01. The CLM appeared on the car when it hit the track, with Lotus banners disappearing. Now I normally do not trust motorsport.com as a source, but having checked up a few facts here in this article, I give this. http://www.motorsport.com/wec/news/colin-kolles-saga-the-mysterious-lmp1-car/

lemans-24-hours-of-le-mans-2014-lotus-t129-lmp1-presentation-pierre-kaffer-christophe-bouc.jpg

(Lotus T129 launched at the 2014 Le Mans 24 Hours, note the Lotus badging on the front and Romanian flag indicating involvement from Kodewa)

Colin Kolles also over summer came into possession of the Caterham F1 team following Tony Fernandes giving in and selling the team over summer. Now some french media reportedly believe that the CLM stands for Caterham Le Mans, which whilst hopeful, is an interesting spin. In between the LMP1 cars debut and name change from the T129 to the CLM P1/01 (the gap between COTA and Fuji WEC events), Colin Kolles' Caterham F1 HQ were raided by Bailiffs. This comes after as this article states http://www.racecar-engineering.com/news/future-of-caterham-f1-in-doubt-after-bailiffs-move-in/ that Colin Kolles supposedly set up a "Caterham CF1 Grand Prix Limited" in the weeks upcoming. Also Kolles was not originally involved in the T128 back in 2013, but he came on with the ADESS / Kodewa project after learning of it, whilst they were not really Lotus, they had just a lease to use the naming rights! http://www.racecar-engineering.com/cars/lotus-t128/

Dppi_02114008_204jpg.jpg

(Lotus under CLM banner at WEC COTA / Fuji - note Lotus logos removed and replaced with CLM banners, and no Romanian flag on the car)

So is the name change perhaps Kolles trying to move away from ADESS / Kodewa (who let us not forget made legal challenges at LM 2013 against him)? Perhaps so, as the Lotus CLM now has absolutely no Lotus branding on the car itself now as I can see. Considering that ADESS / Kodewa had a 2 year deal for 2013/14 with the Lotus name, and the T128 is technically there design (and indeed rumoured to still potentially race under the Praga/Kodewa banner sometime soon), then Kolles has had to rebrand the car?

And to add a final layer of mystery: Racecar Engineering found at Fuji that despite denials from inside the Lotus LMP1 team... the car is indeed a modified LMP2 T128 (http://www.racecar-engineering.com/blogs/gravel-trap-post-race-tech-fuji-wec/). Why would you cover that up? Perhaps you don't want people to find out what you have been using on track....
 
Early I said two things; that I thought Colin Kolles was a complete crook and that I didn't think it was his fault this time.

I'd like to stand corrected on the second, if I may. Something here really really stinks, sadly at the end of the month the people who are feeling the loss are the team workers.
 
I'm not so readily convinced. The legal stouch over the team stems from who owns what, and going from some of Ravetti's comments a few weeks ago, the team is a convoluted mess of companies owning different assets, and the administrator is in there to unravel it. I don't think this is a raid being run by Kolles, but rather, a mess that Fernandes left behind. The current situation seems to stem from the ownership of a supplier which was never transferred to Engavest SA.
 
I can only hope that this is a good thing - with any luck, it will force the big teams to wake up and realise that they are making the sport unsustainable.
More likely it will make them wonder how much money they can get for throwing Jazeman Jaafar in a 3rd Mercedes.
 
Perhaps, but Sauber and Lotus are also in trouble. They may not be able to make a third car and remain viable. Even if everyone else managed a third entry - which some of the bigger teams reckon won't be possible - the grid will have just 21 cars if Sauber and Lotus go.

The harsh truth of this is that the big teams are responsible. Everyone loves to blame Bernie or the FIA, but the teams have been given multiple opportunities to make meaningful, sustainable change, and they have ignored them all. The proposed 2010 regulations, the Resource Restriction Agreement and the Global Cost Cap have all collapsed because the teams wouldn't support them.

Somebody said in the (latest) Audi rumour thread that the World Endurance Championship is a genuine threat of usurping Formula 1's place as the world's premier motorsport category. I dispute that; I think the WEC has a long way to go before it can reasonably claim that title - but if the bigger Formula 1 teams don't wake up to themselves, the WEC might not have to do anything to claim that title.
 
On a mentioned tangent, I wish I could buy Lotus Cars and all rights to the Lotus name just so I could retire it from motorsports.
 
Marussia wont be in the U.S. either so we will have an 18 car grid since I don't see anyone talking about this. The whole Caterham thing should have been obvious to us all after the ultimatum Fernandes gave to CNN about what he needed to see this season in F1. The fact that there has been some ugly dealings with this team for the past couple years...
 
Marussia's decision is probably due to not wanting to spend the shipping costs for only one car to be raced?
No, they were expecting to run two in Austin, Brazil and Interlagos. They got a dispensation from the FIA to run a single car in Sochi, but it only applied to Sochi. As tragic as Bianchi's accident was, the team is capable of running two cars, and would thus be expected to run two cars in the final races.
 
It will be interesting to see what the FIA do with the qualifying for the two races. Are they going to drop 2 rounds of 4, or 2 for the first round and 6 for the second?
 
It will be interesting to see what the FIA do with the qualifying for the two races. Are they going to drop 2 rounds of 4, or 2 for the first round and 6 for the second?
Skip qualifying altogether and have them start in the order of the points standings.
 
2 and 6. Qualifying doesn't work on the bottom 6 going out, it works in the top 16 going through. That's how I interpret it.
 
The third car clause isn't quite what I thought:

http://www.pitpass.com/52789/Ecclestone-Teams-will-supply-third-cars-to-rivals

Bernie Ecclestone has revealed that Formula One's teams have signed contracts agreeing to help competitors which get into financial trouble by supplying a third car to them according to an article in the Mail on Sunday by Christian Sylt.

The controversial third car clause has been one of the biggest talking points of the season. It is written into the contracts which commit the teams to staying in F1 until the end of 2020 and it forces them to field a third car if the grid slips below a threshold of 20 cars. It was thought that the teams would have to run the third car themselves but Ecclestone says that in fact it would be supplied to ailing rivals to stop them from going under.
 
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