F1 CEO Bernie Ecclestone said that Manor Marussia had "no intention of competing in Formula One's Australian season-opener and will pay a price for their failure to race," according to Alan Baldwin of REUTERS. The struggling team, which emerged from "the remains of the failed Marussia outfit after going into administration and missing the last three races" of '14, "failed to turn a wheel on the track in Melbourne." Manor Marussia missed all three practice sessions and Saturday qualifying, "blaming software problems," which ruled it out of the race. However, the team escaped sanction with stewards "deciding to take no action after an enquiry decided the team had made 'all reasonable endeavors' to get the cars ready." Ecclestone: "We should have never ever, ever allowed Manor to do what they've done. It's our fault. I predicted this would happen. They had no intention of racing in Australia. Zero. They couldn't have raced if someone had gone there with a machine gun and put it to their head." Ecclestone said there had been "no charge for the freight because they were entitled to that providing they were competing." He said, "They are not competing so they have to pay for that." Marussia Sporting Dir Graeme Lowdon said, "We knew we had the possibility of unknown problems and we haven’t had the benefit of sorting some of those problems out in preseason testing" (REUTERS, 3/16).
