Manor Marussia F1 Team 2015

[frosty125]

EDIT Wrong thread.....

Contribution

I wonder what involvement McLaren have had in getting them prepared they could lend a lot of expertise to this situation.

[Starscreamer]

Still no news on a 2nd driver, but it won't be Merhi. He's staying in FR3.5 with Pons, the worst team on the grid. Still, it's a paid drive I guess rather than trying to fund an F1 drive.

My guess and hope is Giedo van der Garde [-o<

Other hope Robin Frijns [-o<

[Richard]

Can the above please be updated?

Done, also updated the team name, location, website.

I'm not sure about the TD role, Graeme Lowdon is regularly interviewed in that capacity but his title is "Sporting Director"

[Starscreamer]

Can the above please be updated?

Done, also updated the team name, location, website.

I'm not sure about the TD role, Graeme Lowdon is regularly interviewed in that capacity but his title is "Sporting Director"

I thought this is their website http://manorf1team.com/

[Richard]

That site only has one old press release. They seem to be using Facebook as their main site at the moment. I'll add the manorf1team.com to the front page too, then it'll be listed for when it does go live.

[SidSidney]

Well the team will be part of the marketing budget so costs of F1 will come out of the company before tax anyway so its eats into "profit" less than just running a team from your own pocket.

Almost certainly true. I imagine they will chip in several mill to the budget from that route.

The house was likely bought with a directors loan, somebody probably worked out that is was cheaper than getting a personal mortgage.

No, he sold ~4.5% of the company shares for 2M, which is fair enough. But he sold them to himself: his Group company, 100% owned by his family, bought them. And that values the company whose shares he sold at just 40M... sure the group may be worth more, but it's hard to see how that translates into F1 team longevity.

The company may be hugely cash rich and Fitzpatrick would rather have an F1 team then give a load of money to the Tax Man, that's what I'd do!

It doesn't look cash rich anywhere in the most current accounts - losses until recenty, only 8M in cash on the books, and it owes at least 8M in debt. He has a background trading in the city so he probably knows what he is doing, but it looks like a stretch.

[Richard]

...

The team have said Fitzpatrick is involved in a personal capacity. There is no involvement from OVO.

[turbof1]

...

The team have said Fitzpatrick is involved in a personal capacity. There is no involvement from OVO.

A direct quote from Fitzpatrick himself:

"For a long time I had an ambition to own an F1 team, I was hoping Ovo Energy would be successful enough to own a team, but I didn't expect it to be in 2015."

It's not 100% certain he is stating there that Ovo Energy is involved, but it does look like he is very much insinuating it.

It doesn't look cash rich anywhere in the most current accounts - losses until recenty, only 8M in cash on the books, and it owes at least 8M in debt. He has a background trading in the city so he probably knows what he is doing, but it looks like a stretch.

That kind of debt vs. the total activa/passiva is hardly an issue. Having debt is a standard tool for companies, especially due financial leverage, and is often and widely employed.

Losses are to be expected. The company has only started in 2009; you can't expect that a new supplier on highly dominated and saturated market like the British Energy Market (90% of it is in hands of the Big Six, OVO is not one of them) to make profits the first few years. The long term is more important here, and it looks like OVO is hitting the targets: steadily decreasing losses the first few years, then make profit.

[Manoah2u]

oh please dont have a livery like this

[Starscreamer]

oh please dont have a livery like this

http://www.energy4.co.uk/wp-content/upl ... nergy3.jpg

I like it colorful
Better then grey

[Richard]

...

The team have said Fitzpatrick is involved in a personal capacity. There is no involvement from OVO.

A direct quote from Fitzpatrick himself:

"For a long time I had an ambition to own an F1 team, I was hoping Ovo Energy would be successful enough to own a team, but I didn't expect it to be in 2015."

It's not 100% certain he is stating there that Ovo Energy is involved, but it does look like he is very much insinuating it.

That quote could mean he didn't expect OVO to make him wealthy enough to own an F1 team. Meanwhile from Sky:

It is understood Fitzpatrick, a life-long F1 fan who has been talking to the team since they entered administration last October, is financing the deal through personal investment and that Ovo is not involved

Mind you I wouldn't be surprised if they fill some empty sponsorship space with an OVO logo and use the images in their marketing.

[alex aero]

Here is a short video of Greame Lowdon explaining their future plans.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRb7HxBA37U

Another interesting story is, that Nicolas Perrin has joined the team as Head of track side engineering.
http://gaborvajda.kinja.com/the-f1-lmp1 ... 1689354718

[SidSidney]

...

The team have said Fitzpatrick is involved in a personal capacity. There is no involvement from OVO.

He put all 350K his life savings into Ovo in 2008, selling his house to do so, and needed to sell shares in Ovo in 2014 to buy a house having rented for the previous 6 years. So it's not like we are talking about Warren Buffet levels of cash independence here.

Ovo is clearly the cash cow that feeds his private bank account, and since he controls both Ovo and now Manor you can just see the same thing as all those entrepreneurs have done beofre happening again - Kingfisher, AirAsia, European Aviation etc etc. All those team struggle for money. Ovo will almost certainly "be persuaded" to spend some money on it in an "arms length" deal, but ultimately where do you see this going?

Adding the LMP guy Perrinn... nice guy but I can't see that going far.

[mf2929]

http://www1.skysports.com/f1/news/12433 ... ustin-king

so they are going to use ferrari 2014 engine? i thought the revival of Manor will be used by Ferrari to extract more data from their 2015 engine, why don't they make a generous deal by giving Manor the 2015 engine

and i/m really worried about the 107% rules..

[SidSidney]

That kind of debt vs. the total activa/passiva is hardly an issue. Having debt is a standard tool for companies, especially due financial leverage, and is often and widely employed.

Sure, that is (usually) true, but what is also true is thtat those debts are locked to assets i.e., cash balances, on which the bank has the first call. I was running a much more profitable $100m turnover software business in Britain between 2007-10 and I have direct personal experience of how that process works... Anyway, my point is: how does that picture square with taking on a cash sinkhole like an F1 team?

Losses are to be expected. The company has only started in 2009; you can't expect that a new supplier on highly dominated and saturated market like the British Energy Market (90% of it is in hands of the Big Six, OVO is not one of them) to make profits the first few years. The long term is more important here, and it looks like OVO is hitting the targets: steadily decreasing losses the first few years, then make profit.

Sure, you can see the signs of improvement as they amortise overheads through expanded sales volume. Again though: how does that picture square with taking on an F1 team? If big multinationals look twice at funding F1, how does a plucky barely-profitable low margin early stager think they can do it?

My answer: on the cheap and by being optimistic. But those days are long gone. It will be sunshine and glory for a few months then back to the same old moans about cost and no sponsors.