The main story off track for most of the second half of the season, has been that Red Bull and Toro Rosso may be quitting Formula One. With the arrival of the Haas F1 team this would leave the 2016 season starting grid in Australia with just 18 cars.
That number cold now well fall to 16 as the news that Marussia Manor’’s Graham Lowden (Sporting Director) and John Booth have quit the team the Telegraph is reporting. Both men were crucial to the revival of Marussia team after their Russian oligarch owner, Andrei Cheglakov, pulled the plug following the inaugural Russian GP in 2014.
Stephen Fitzpatrick, the principal of OVO energy group bought the team and invested around $45m. Marussia also received prize money for finishing 10th in 2014 and along with the other funding all the top 10 teams receive from FOM, this meant there was a budget of around $100m for Manor Marussia to compete in this years championship.
Lowden and Booth are the heart of the Marussia Manor team and John Booth was involved with both Lewis Hamilton and Kimi Raikkonen during the early part of their racing careers. The Telegraph states that tension has increased over the past months as Fitzpatrick has excluded both Lowden and Booth from significant decisions affecting the future of the team.
A source told TJ13 in Austin, that the Manor duo had become increasingly frustrated at the lack of funds to develop the car this year, and there are suspicions that Fitzpatrick used part of the 2016 FOM funding to repay his investment. This of course is a team owners prerogative, however Lowden and Booth believe promises made have now been broken.
Ecclestone refuses to pay the teams until the end of the season monies owed to them for the following year. This is to prevent owners cashing in on the prize money and failing to turn up the following year.
Manor Racing was formed by Booth in 1990 and has competed in a number of single seater series below Formula One. The GP3 team was sold in 2014 and Manor are competing this year only in F1 and the Eurocup Renault 2.0litre championship. Rumours suggest Booth and Lowden are looking to the WEC for their futures.
So there may be an engine supply for Red Bull after all
Or Lotus can resign.
Thats a shame, Manor were fast becoming one of my fav teams, both Booth and Lowden seem like good guys. Considering what they’ve managed, itd be a shame if they left F1.
Here here, Both top Guys, I hope they stay in the sport, other wise it’ll just be Rob Smedley and James Allison left we get any semblance of integrity from.
Off topic: Semi-empty grandstands in the Mexican GP for FP1 as organizers fails to open gates in time, files more than 1 km long. Shuttles offered by the Autodromo don’t show up at the agreed location.
Sounds about par for mexico, bet they have nice tacos though 🙂
lets hope the circuit gives a good race – and I for one actually fell for the idea that Manor would be staying for good, not just running after getting this years prize money courtesy of Jules points finish last year in Monaco, shame on me, shame for F1 – but hardly a surprise. I doubt however that if they do go Mercedes will be offering RB an engine, regardless.
You shouldn’t be so xenophobic. The mob will kill you for that…;-)
I promise you I love Mexico, Mexicans, and most of all Mexican food!
But I stand by what I said – par for the course for Mexico 🙂
Heres hoping for a great race, thats one slippery track there could be a lot of yellow flags
power units for red bull then?
no.
I have a strong feeling mercedes will regret turning them down.
#lamborghini_redbull
And wouldn’t they have also regretted giving it to them as well? So nothing has changed then.
Yes, quite entertaining that the fizzy drinks company has merc this scared.
Wonder if Lewis has had input. You can imagine DR becoming WDC would steal his limelight quickly.
Oh so don’t they have Ferrari and Honda scared as well? They too are refusing to supply them as well.
I wonder if Seb, ALO or JB has had an input? You can imagine DR becoming WDC would steal their limelight quickly. ….😏😏😏
You can bet ALO has had input.
Yeah I don’t buy that lambo thing. That’s vw. And lambo has a terrible f1 past already.
Maybe rosberg can take over as team principal seeing as he wont be driving for Mercedes next year.
While on the topic of which teams will be around next year… Have you heard the rumor that Force India is having negotiations with Aston Martin? That according to the BBC