Caterham employees accuse team and administrators of attempting to hide the fact entire workforce has been made redundant.
Whilst fans celebrated the news that the Leafield outfit had been successful in its crowd funding project and would therefore be able to contest the final race of the season, at a time the big question was who would drive the cars in Abu Dhabi the entire workforce was being made redundant.
Indeed, employees claim that administrator Finbarr O’Connell, of Smith & Williamson, deliberately attempted to bury news of the redundancies as the crowd funding success dominated the headlines.
"It is dismaying to see the amount of publicity surrounding the success of the crowdfunding on the same day that there entire workforce was made redundant while owed seven weeks salary," senior aerodynamicist, Jim McManus told Pitpass. "The cynic in me would suggest that the two are not unrelated and the good news has served as a convenient opportunity to bury the bad news. If this is the case then it seems to have worked as there hasn’t been a peep anywhere (unlike Marussia the week before who owed their employees "only" one week of salary).
"The employees have been made redundant from 1MRT (a company still owned by Mr Fernandes). The present situation is the inevitable (and foreseeable) consequence of the manner in which Mr Fernandes sold Caterham F1. It isn’t good enough to claim that there were no other buyers. In that event the proper thing to do would have been to wind up the company gracefully while ensuring that employees and suppliers were fairly dealt with. Undeniably this would have been the more expensive course of action."
Indeed, this would have been the preferable option for staff as were the team bought the staff could be re-hired and if not would at least have been able to officially register as unemployed.
"Up until yesterday I was employed by Caterham F1 Team, latterly 1MRT," another former employee told Pitpass. "I can confirm that all the staff were made redundant on Friday. But nothing made the press, because Finbarr O'Connell was releasing lots of messages about the crowdfunding initiative. Always use a good news story to bury bad news.
"All the guys going to Abu Dhabi this week were also made redundant, but will be employed by the administrator as consultants," he added.
Again, according to this former employee, Tony Fernandes shoulders much of the blame for the employee’s predicament, the situation not helped by his failure even to communicate with his former staff. In another twist, it is claimed that whilst in charge at Caterham, Colin Kolles had staff working on his LMP1 project, "using the very limited materials that were left and were needed for the pattern for the 2015 chassis".
"The priority now is for the staff to find new work, sign on and sort out their creditor list (mortgage, rent, loans etc.)," says the former employee. "However, we have been told that the Administrators will provide any buyer of the team all the contact details of the staff for possible re-employment - but with Marussia laying off their staff, any new buyer will have rich pickings of F1 staff on the market.
"There are a lot of very angry staff out there at the moment, and I can categorically say that in the 24 years I have been in motorsport I have never been treated like this. No-one has taken ownership of the staff, and we have been ignored, lied to and played."
"I'm not sure this is the bad news," O'Connell, subsequently told the BBC. "This is what the employees as a group have been asking me to do. This is what they want because it brings them closer to receiving money and if you speak to any of the staff representatives, they will confirm to you that 14 November was the date that they gave me."
In fact, the employees were actually hoping the team might be saved as opposed to having to rely on state benefit, but yes being made officially redundant is the best option under the circumstances. However, it is the timing of those redundancies and the fact that they were carried out so quietly, certainly compared to the public crowing about heading off to Abu Dhabi and the 'success' of the crowd funding project, that truly galls them.
As Caterham heads off to Abu Dhabi for the season finale, there remains a lot of bitterness back home in the UK, and based on some of the shocking claims made concerning the company's business practices to Pitpass in the last 24 hours understandably so. Indeed, it is claimed that such was Renault's concern it was responsible for the move that saw Cyril Abiteboul (Executive Director of Renault Sport F1) installed at Caterham in September 2012, the Frenchman subsequently replacing Fernandes as team principal.
Chris Balfe
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