The team lies in last place after yesterday’s Austrian Grand Prix and the Telegraph reports that its performance off-track is no better.
Its accounts for the year-ending December 31, 2013, reveal that the Sheffield-based team is facing a cash shortfall and is “wholly reliant” on funding from Mr Fitzpatrick. He steered the team out of administration in February through a Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA) and appointed former Sainsbury’s chief Justin King as its chairman.
Manor’s Grand Prix director, Abdulla Boulsien, said the company was “wholly reliant on the financial support of Stephen Fitzpatrick, the ultimate controlling party, to fund any cash shortfall between income and expenditure”.
He added that earlier this month Mr Fitzpatrick committed to enabling Manor to continue as a going concern for at least 12 months. It burned up net losses of £4.7m in 2013, down from £57.7m the previous year. Revenue accelerated from £28.3m to £60.8m driven by payments from its sponsors, including Russian sports car maker Marussia, which replaced debt financing in a £134.9m recapitalisation.
It finished the year in 10th place, entitling it to an estimated £12.5m prize money in 2014, but this could not stop it from crashing into administration with debts of £63.6m.
Computer company Dell was owed £390,000 whilst tyre manufacturer Pirelli was due £1m and the outstanding bill to British engineering firm McLaren came to £7.1m. Manor’s biggest single unsecured creditor was Ferrari which supplied the team’s V6 engines and was owed £15.2m. They were all paid just 1.262p in the pound in the CVA.
The team’s main source of funding was investment from Russian businessman Andrei Cheglakov who controlled it and Marussia. The team went into administration i October last year when Mr Cheglakov stopped paying the bills and most of its 170 staff were made redundant the following month.
