In the first of our two-part interview, Finbarr O’Connell has detailed the demise of Caterham. F1
Former Caterham boss Finbarr O’Connell has revealed how the final days of the team played out, after taking over as team boss for their final race.
“If it was on TV, I’d probably turn on something else! I find it goes on for so long and can be processional but, having been the Team Principal of an F1 team, I’d be much more interested nowadays. I still don’t watch the races. But I have a real interest in the finances, the business side, and the intrigue of it, having been in the centre of it all.”
The Caterham 7, originally launched in 1973, is a direct evolution of the Series 3 Lotus Seven designed by Colin Chapman. That Lotus name was to have important consequences for the Formula 1 team. By 2014, Fernandes’ patience with a failure to progress in F1 was wearing thin. Coupled with his increasing involvement with football team Queens Park Rangers, Fernandes wanted a way out of F1. With regards to his football interests, Fernandes bought the whole of Bernie Ecclestone’s 66% stake in Queens Park Rangers for a reported £35m.
O’Connell, a mild-mannered Irishman hailing from County Leitrim, headed up the administration process. He explained that the F1 team was an asset the administrators viewed as worth trying to find a new buyer for. “Then it became clear the racing team wasn’t going to get racing under its own steam and so it was decided I should get involved, and I effectively took over as administrator of 1MRT and as Team Principal of the F1 team.
“Even though it’s a foreign company, it effectively traded in the UK so English courts have the right to appoint administrators if its centre of main interests, or ‘COMI’, is in the UK. The view was that, when I was appointed to CSL, 1MRT would continue and sort out its issues but that wasn’t happening.”Arguments over who owned the Caterham F1 team
It was at this time that Fernandes took to Twitter and said: “If you buy something you should pay for it. Quite simple.” Constantin Cojocaru, a former Romanian footballer, was approached by Ravetto, who said that he recognised him from his football career, and elevated his position to being the owner and the director of CSL. The shares were transferred to him by 1MRT.“When that ran out of steam… Colin Kolles must have been looking for a substantial backer and, when he didn’t have that, he didn’t have the money to go forward. That’s when Mr. Cojocaru became the owner and sole director of CSL.
As for why Kolles might not want to have engaged with him, O’Connell said: “A number of reasons. The big thing was that Caterham, owned by Tony Fernandes and all of the parties trading with it like Pirelli &, for gearboxes… all of those saw a multi-billionaire behind it and had confidence that they would be paid.
“The objective was always to save the team as a going concern, because it was probably worth 10x , maybe 20x the break-up value if it was sold as a going concern. And that means handing over to somebody a racing team that can race. “We had to get all the suppliers we needed to commit to actually support us, so effectively Red Bull… because these people were already owed a very substantial amount of money. But then to allow us to use the gearboxes, Pirelli for the tyres… Actually, we had to pay for our oil at full price, and we had a lot of support from Renault on using the engines as well.
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