Formula One: Marussia in financial crisis

While the top tier of Formula one teams can afford to splurge millions of pounds without so much as batting an eyelid for extensive reconstruction work on their cars which might just guarantee a very small chance of improvement, there are others like Marussia, who have to be accountable for every dollar that they spent.

Marussia’s main concern is that it has not signed a commercial deal with Bernie Ecclestone- who is CVC Capital Partners representative and the private equity owner of the sport.

While Ecclestone has always maintained that the deal is open to the team, Marussia, which sits in tenth place in the constructors’ championship, remains oblivious to it.

Marussia chief executive Graeme Lowdon was quoted as telling the Times: “All we ask for is a level playing field. All teams should be treated equally. For whatever reason, that does not seem to be the case. We just don’t have a deal with the commercial rights-holder. Why should that be? This sport is full of strange mysteries and that is one of them.”

Lowden who also said that since Ecclestone reports to the CVC board, it was actually the board’s responsibility to look after all those involved equally. He said: “That board has to make a decision on how it treats companies it deals with. We are one of those companies, and it chooses to treat us differently. It doesn’t make any sense to me, but then I don’t work for CVC. Maybe they have a master plan.

“This is the Formula One World Championship, not the world championship of private equity excellence. My view is that the championship is bigger than the participants and that is the reason why CVC have a successful investment. It should be treated with a high degree of respect, including the participants.”

Source: ESPN F1