Update: Caterham F1 Is In Massive Trouble And Nobody Wants To Take Responsibility

When Caterham’s 2014 F1 season has been worse off the track than it has on it, you know it’s in pretty big trouble. The disaster has now moved up a gear, however, with confusion over who actually owns the team.

On Wednesday, a statement was released by the new buyers - a Swiss-based consortium called Engavest SA - claiming that the shares purchased have not been transferred over by former owner Tony Fernandes, meaning he’s still in charge of Caterham’s F1 outfit.

Earlier this week, Caterham Sports Ltd - a supplier to the F1 team - went into administration, and on Thursday administrators locked staff out of Caterham F1’s Leafield base.

Engavest SA then released another statement on Thursday clarifying that it has fulfilled all of the required conditions, adding that Fernandes remains owner of the team and is “fully resposible for all its activities” as he has failed to transfer the shares.

Fernandes responded a little while later claiming the opposite. He said Engavest SA had not complied with any of the conditions in the agreement. He added:

“Our lawyers have asked Engavest several times to comply with these conditions but they have failed to engage. If you agree to buy a business, you must pay its bills. They have breached that promise and now, sadly, it is others such as the employees and the fans of the Caterham F1 team that will suffer if the team ceases to race.”

Engavest SA then responded a few hours later, saying every condition of the sales and purchase agreement had been met and that it was Fernandes’ fault.

Clearly, then, it’s a bit of a mess at Caterham. Will they race at the United States Grand Prix in Texas? It looks very unlikely. We just hope this whole situation gets sorted out quickly.

Update:

Caterham F1 has announced that it is now being run by its administrator, in a bid to allow the team to complete the 2014 season. The full statement says:

“Following a request of yesterday evening at 21.55hrs CET from Caterham Sports Limited’s administrators and the legal advisors of Mr Tony Fernandes’ related EXIM Bank, representatives of 1MRT/Caterham F1 Team have agreed, with all rights reserved, to hand-over management of the Caterham F1 Team to the adminatrator Mr Finbarr O’Connell in the higher interest of allowing the team to continue operating and preparing for the next events.”