Marussia F1 Team 2014

[Jamesbeil]

Really impressed with the performance from Marussia today - Chilton was much improved from his FP2 time, finishing ahead of one of the Saubers, next to Maldonado - I can't see anything going wrong from there going into the first corner. Another very strong Q2 from Bianchi who almost took P15. Optimistic for a good finish tomorrow - I'm assuming the Caterhams will DNF, so far this year the men in red have looked faster than the Saubers one-on-one, which puts Chilton in the frame to at least keep 18th. From 16th, I could see Jules overhauling a few positions but I'm not going to hope for anything better than 12th.

[marcush.]

with Ferrari openly admitting to a down on power PU Marussias season is even more impressive .They have definitively made the step Fernandez had expected of Caterham ...and somehow this may open a new lifeline for the team as it can´t be easy to keep your team in the business ..
This at the expense of Caterham and Sauber but it´s a hard life out there.

[seinfeld]

do you have a source for this info?

You do know how flush the Chilton family is right? There is talk about them buying the team!

so its not a money issue from the Chilton side. pure and simple.

What happens is they usually pay driver salary at the shutdown and then at the end of the year in 2 payments. so max would have gave Marussia 30million for his seat from all his sponsors and his dad's cash. then at the 6 month break Max is due to get a pre agreed amount as a salary (he may only get 25% of the 30 million, who really knows ) but Marussia couldnt pull any cash out as they are broke. and I would say they have ripped of Rossi, to pay Chilton. I would like to hear from Rossi about why he was denied the seat when he made his payment.

[NathanOlder]

Would be very interesting to see how the would have faired with a Merc PU.

[Pierce89]

do you have a source for this info?

You do know how flush the Chilton family is right? There is talk about them buying the team!

so its not a money issue from the Chilton side. pure and simple.

What happens is they usually pay driver salary at the shutdown and then at the end of the year in 2 payments. so max would have gave Marussia 30million for his seat from all his sponsors and his dad's cash. then at the 6 month break Max is due to get a pre agreed amount as a salary (he may only get 25% of the 30 million, who really knows ) but Marussia couldnt pull any cash out as they are broke. and I would say they have ripped of Rossi, to pay Chilton. I would like to hear from Rossi about why he was denied the seat when he made his payment.

Rossi didn't pay to race. He was signed as a reserve without bringing any cash.

[Jamesbeil]

It's a real shame that Bianchi's race went so wrong after Crashtor Maldonado introduced himself, but Chilton put in a really good performance to finish 16th. I don't anticipate anything special at Monza, probably a 19-20 finish, unless there's a lot of retirements or some really fortunate safeties.

[seinfeld]

do you have a source for this info?

You do know how flush the Chilton family is right? There is talk about them buying the team!

so its not a money issue from the Chilton side. pure and simple.

What happens is they usually pay driver salary at the shutdown and then at the end of the year in 2 payments. so max would have gave Marussia 30million for his seat from all his sponsors and his dad's cash. then at the 6 month break Max is due to get a pre agreed amount as a salary (he may only get 25% of the 30 million, who really knows ) but Marussia couldnt pull any cash out as they are broke. and I would say they have ripped of Rossi, to pay Chilton. I would like to hear from Rossi about why he was denied the seat when he made his payment.

Rossi didn't pay to race. He was signed as a reserve without bringing any cash.

Pierce. THey sold the seat for 1 race to pay chilton his fee. That's exactly what happened. That's the only reason Chilton would move aside. Again the Chilton family is worth MILLIONS. and they havent defaulted on any payments.

They are doing exactly what Catharam are doing with Kamuai's seat. they will sell his seat for each race to keep team afloat.

[Petroltorque]

You are conflating the issues. Marussia did not sell Chilton's Seat. Rossi is not paying. The problem is the non payment of funds by Chilton's backers. It was extremely disingenuous of Chilton press office to put that 'voluntarily withdrawing allowing Marussia to raise money' spin into the media. This week's Autosport confirmed that the situation was non payment.
In any event Chilton's seat is being funded by a group of investors who are looking for ROI in the unlikely event he becomes a success.

[seinfeld]

You are conflating the issues. Marussia did not sell Chilton's Seat. Rossi is not paying. The problem is the non payment of funds by Chilton's backers. It was extremely disingenuous of Chilton press office to put that 'voluntarily withdrawing allowing Marussia to raise money' spin into the media. This week's Autosport confirmed that the situation was non payment.
In any event Chilton's seat is being funded by a group of investors who are looking for ROI in the unlikely event he becomes a success.

Petrol now it's been a few weeks since it all went down. Chilton was in a press conference, where he was incredibly open and honest about it. And what he said was. on the thursday his seat had been sold for the entire race weekend. And basically after the chilton family started making noise about it. And now I'm quoting Max here. "A decision was taken to give my race seat for the weekend to Rossi and when we (chilton family and financial backers) Heard about this we then contacted Senior management for Marussia (booth etc are not in charge) And after that the decision was then reversed immediately"

So as I said Max Chilton was up to date on his payments etc, it was MaRussia that had either trouble giving Max his retainer, or they defaulted on loans or something that forced them to sell the seat for the cash to stay alive that race. Max's family put a stop to this real quick and got him back in the seat. But was also ruthless as Max had then just stopped any funding in it's tracks so he could maintain his drive Unless the Chilton family threw in extra cash as well to guarantee it will never happen again.
Which is kinda cold and ruthless! and selfish. The team may struggle now.
But as I said. Catharam and Marussia shouldn't be even in the F1 paddock. the car is stupendously uncompetitive
And is wasting a lot of peoples money. Tarnishing records and reputations of drivers, staff and F1 as a whole. I hope the HASS team has a bit more funding etc, and can have at least 1 'REAL' Driver (paid to race) And they show good technological ability and have a car that is on the same lap time range as mid level cars (or better)

[marcush.]

the one thing really embarrasing is this comment .

There is a 107% rule to make sur eonly competitiv e entrant and drivers manage to make it into the race.Marrussia and Caterham surely have no top equipment to campaign but they are indeed not that far of the pace either..In a year with so many technical challenges it is remarkable to see them doing quite well when established competitors struggle to keep ahead of these two ...Sauber and Lotus have not managed to put a half decent gap between them selves and those who we call backmarkers.
Look at the millions Daimler had to spend at all fronts to make it to the sharp end of the grid and this was more a result of Renault and Ferrari both dropping the ball ... which by the way is another disadvantage for those you call unworthy backmarkers ..

And on ground of finance sure not many teams are really in healthy condition these days ...apart from RedBull ,Tororosso who are depending on didis motivation to spend not waning .....Ferrari and maybe Mercedes and Mclaren -all teams are constantly struggling to survive.

[mep]

But as I said. Catharam and Marussia shouldn't be even in the F1 paddock. the car is stupendously uncompetitive
And is wasting a lot of peoples money. Tarnishing records and reputations of drivers, staff and F1 as a whole. I hope the HASS team has a bit more funding etc, and can have at least 1 'REAL' Driver (paid to race) And they show good technological ability and have a car that is on the same lap time range as mid level cars (or better)

These kind of comments are totally inappropriate. These teams well deserve to be in formula 1. There have always been some backmarkers, they are part of an interesting starting field. Such teams can offer young drivers and engineers the chance to get into F1, gain experience and grow. The guys there are doing a hard job because with a handful of resources they need to achieve the same as the top teams. The top teams hire a guy just to design a jack where in a small team 1 guy needs to design half of the car. Yet those small teams still deliver a working and surprisingly reliably car at the start of the season.
We have to face it the golden era of formula 1 is probably over. Viewing figures decline, the grandstands are empty, sponsors are hardly interested. Apart from Mercedes, RedBull and Ferrari are all teams financially struggling. However, the technical level and professionalism got raised so much, during the period where the automotive industry threw blindly millions into F1, that you have a high mountain to climb to become competitive in F1. The cars of the current season might be the most complex F1 cars ever build. If you look at the winning F1 car of the late 90is early 2000 you are surprised how simple they were. If you go another 10 years back then teams might have just had 2 guys in the aero department. Back then you actually had the chance to build a competitive car as newcomer with a handful guys and rational budged.
You should rather ask if a team like Mercedes is actually what F1 needs. They are fighting completely alone for world championship. That is simply because their massive financial effort has generated a superior powertrain. The irony is that the other engine suppliers can’t even catch up simply because the current rules do not allow it. The motorsport they want to show you is a farce because they don’t play on a level field with the other teams and they don’t let their two drivers battle it out on track as we have just seen with the hype after the small race incident between Ham and Ros. In their ideal world 2 Mercedes cars lead the field for an entire race and in the last laps they will decide by teamorder who is going to win.
Have a close look at the brutal fight at the back of the field. Marussia achieved some points this year, which will be worth millions. The loser (Catherham) might potentially drop out of F1 because their financial situation could become hopeless.

[turbof1]

Everybody is entitled to their own opinion - if someone feels that a team or teams don't life up to the competition and shouldn't be in F1, then that's his right to believe. Too much uniformity would make such discussions very dull.

IMHO, Marussia effectively showed to me this year they earn their spot in F1. We shouldn't forget that this team endured a LOT through the years. Difficulties through funding, very little price money throughout 2010 to 2012, a wrong path of development philosophy, huge issues with the gearboxes, etc. Caterham on the other hand started their adventure with basicilly a prototype FI chassis, giving them a good advantage over the other starter teams. They also had the best funding of the starting teams, plus renault engines and red bull gearboxes after a couple of years.

What I am getting at is that Caterham should have built a huge advantage over Marussia over the years. They didn't, partly due Caterham simply messing things up but also because Marussia made huge gains. Marussia fought back to the point they are challenging Sauber and Lotus this year. If they somehow manage to make the same relative gains next year, they are right in the midfield, scoring more points. Especially with Bianchi (Chilton IMO is a lost cause on that front).

One shouldn't forget this is perhaps the smallest team; give them the resources that Sauber has, they would be a lot more competitive. It might feel 'wrong' to drop Chilton simply because of the money (although performance-wise it isn't a bad thing either), but for one they need to survive and for two it isn't like this hasn't been done before by other teams. HRT changed drivers almost at a race by race basis.

[Pierce89]

You are conflating the issues. Marussia did not sell Chilton's Seat. Rossi is not paying. The problem is the non payment of funds by Chilton's backers. It was extremely disingenuous of Chilton press office to put that 'voluntarily withdrawing allowing Marussia to raise money' spin into the media. This week's Autosport confirmed that the situation was non payment.
In any event Chilton's seat is being funded by a group of investors who are looking for ROI in the unlikely event he becomes a success.

Petrol now it's been a few weeks since it all went down. Chilton was in a press conference, where he was incredibly open and honest about it. And what he said was. on the thursday his seat had been sold for the entire race weekend. And basically after the chilton family started making noise about it. And now I'm quoting Max here. "A decision was taken to give my race seat for the weekend to Rossi and when we (chilton family and financial backers) Heard about this we then contacted Senior management for Marussia (booth etc are not in charge) And after that the decision was then reversed immediately"

So as I said Max Chilton was up to date on his payments etc, it was MaRussia that had either trouble giving Max his retainer, or they defaulted on loans or something that forced them to sell the seat for the cash to stay alive that race. Max's family put a stop to this real quick and got him back in the seat. But was also ruthless as Max had then just stopped any funding in it's tracks so he could maintain his drive Unless the Chilton family threw in extra cash as well to guarantee it will never happen again.
Which is kinda cold and ruthless! and selfish. The team may struggle now.
But as I said. Catharam and Marussia shouldn't be even in the F1 paddock. the car is stupendously uncompetitive
And is wasting a lot of peoples money. Tarnishing records and reputations of drivers, staff and F1 as a whole. I hope the HASS team has a bit more funding etc, and can have at least 1 'REAL' Driver (paid to race) And they show good technological ability and have a car that is on the same lap time range as mid level cars (or better)

Rossi never bought any seat. Marussia weren't trying to stay alive for 1 week. Marussia wanted a better driver but the Chiltons threatened legal action. It had nothing to do with paying Chilton(not that he's earned a single dollar with his "driving") or any loans. Marussia simply wanted a weekend without Chilton holding them back.

[Di-69]

To be honest , you'll never know what goes on behind closed doors.

[Di-69]

Marussia have done well , from one of the smallest budgets on the grid ,to winning points and the cash that comes with it ( if they can hold off the teams behind them). I've seen the posts that say they shouldn't be there and the ifs , buts and what evers, simply ....... Thay are in the position they are because the others were just not as good on the day and luck went Murussias way ,but that's racing .