The Manor Formula 1 team "has folded after going into administration and failing to find a buyer," leaving the sport with 10 teams two months before the start of the season in Australia, according to Alan Baldwin of REUTERS. Administrators FRP Advisory said that while a separate entity that holds the right to enter the world championship "remained active," the team's operating company Just Racing Services Ltd. had "ceased to trade." All but "a handful of the 212 staff, who were sent home on Friday, will be made redundant next week." The British-based team, last in the '16 championship, went into administration on Jan. 6. Joint administrator Geoff Rowley said in a statement, "It is deeply regrettable that the team has had to cease trading and close its doors." FRP said that it and the team's senior management "had been unable to secure new investment within the time available." Administrators had "sounded more hopeful earlier in the week, amid speculation about a possible Indonesian takeover," saying talks with interested parties had intensified (REUTERS, 1/27).
UNCERTAIN FUTURE: The BBC's Andrew Benson reported "it is not necessarily the end of Manor -- a buyer could potentially still purchase the remnants of the team." But even if that "were to happen, the move makes it much harder for Manor to make it to the start of the season in Australia" on March 26. The team's collapse leaves 20 cars on the grid in Melbourne and comes "just five days after the sport was taken over" by Liberty Media and long-time CEO Bernie Ecclestone was removed. South East England region MEP Anneliese Dodd "has called for a European Commission investigation into the FIA and F1 following Manor's collapse." She said, "The collapse of Manor Racing could be the end of seven turbulent years for a team that brought highly skilled jobs to Oxfordshire. I am very concerned that this follows other job losses in small teams. ... I will be writing to the Commission to call on them to take serious action on the way F1 is run, before a sport loved by 500 million fans is damaged beyond repair" (BBC, 1/27). In London, Rebecca Clancy reported the team "does have experience of being rescued at the 11th hour" after energy entrepreneur Stephen Fitzpatrick "bought the team out of the ashes of Marussia" in Jan. '15. The team originally started in F1 in '10 as Virgin Racing and has "been through several guises in the intervening years." Efforts to save the team this time around "are believed to have been hampered by Manor finishing last in the constructors' championship," having been overtaken by Sauber in the penultimate race of the season in Brazil last November. The slide to 11th "is believed to have cost the team" roughly $15M (LONDON TIMES, 1/27).
MOTIVATION FOR LIBERTY: Baldwin reported in a separate piece F1 reported total revenue of $1.7B in '15, and gross profit of $557M, but the "money-spinning sport was unable to prevent the Manor team from going to the wall on Friday." Seeing the starting grid reduced to 20 cars, two months before the season's opening race in Australia, "is likely to stiffen the resolve of the sport's new owners Liberty Media to change the system and help smaller teams survive." The F1 landscape is "heavily skewed toward the big teams at present, with special payments for Ferrari and others while those at the back are struggling to pay for expensive engines." Liberty wants to see costs cut and the distribution of revenues "changed to ensure all players can stay in the game," but its hands are tied in the short-term with current team contracts binding until '20. Brawn: "We need to ... see if there is a better way for Formula 1 overall to distribute the funds" (REUTERS, 1/27).
