I’m still trying to play around with the This Week in Sport format to make it more manageable. I think what may work is to look at one story more in depth rather than the scattershot approach I was taking in the past. This week, we’ll look at the bankruptcies of Caterham and Marussia, and the far reaching consequences this will have on the grid. It is possibly the most important crisis in F1’s history the last five years.

Not to bury the lede, Formula One’s two smallest teams, Caterham and Marussia, will not be making the trip to Austin. Both teams have filed for administration, the UK’s form of bankruptcy. This leaves Formula One with nine teams of two travelling to Austin. Caterham and Marussia’s financial statuses have been known for a long time, and other F1 teams are thought to be on iffy financial positions, Sauber, Force India and Lotus looming the largest. There appears there will be no new teams entering Formula One next year — Haas plan to join in 2016, and Forza Rossa were approved but there hasn’t been enough noise from them to give much faith they will show up. Unless buyers for Caterham and Marussia are found, we’re looking at an 18 car grid for next season, and that could activate certain clauses in F1’s contracts where teams are required to run third cars, could potentially void many commercial agreements, and have long-lasting effects on how the sport itself is structured. I’m sorry this has taken on a very speculative tone, but F1 isn’t very transparent, and the second-hand sources I’m hearing about contracts from are contradictory in some spots.

Continue reading “This Week In F1: The Bankruptcy Edition”