My hunch is that if you asked Smith & Williamson administrator Finbarr O’Connell if he imagined that one day he would be sitting on the pit wall running a F1 team, the answer might be no. That’s exactly where the Caterham F1 debacle placed him on Sunday—in Abu Dhabi, on the radio, orchestrating a race.
Caterham managed to crowdfund their way to the grid on Sunday but that wasn’t the main reason for being there. According to Finbarr, it was to meet with potential buyers of the team and he told BBC that he has a potential buyer:
“This is somebody who feels the same as me that if we don’t do something quickly then the team will drift away,” he said.
“If that works, and this is a credible person with credible backers, that will be the best solution.
“Talking to people with no Formula 1 involvement at all, who don’t know what this is really about, adds that huge risk factor.
“But this is somebody who actually knows it, and who wants to do it.
“If it’s serious and it goes ahead then we’ll announce things as soon as we can.”
O’Connell says that if talks proceed in a positive way, the team could be under new ownership within a month. It’s perhaps good news but there are a lot of pitfalls when trying to arrive at a price let alone the legal details.
Caterham finished last in Abu Dhabi but it was a good showing for Will Stevens in his first grand prix.
Hat Tip: BBC
