LONDON - Administrators for the Manor Formula One team say talks with interested parties have intensified but a firm financial commitment has yet to be secured as a deadline looms.
Manor needs at least half a million pounds ($622,000) to pay salaries, prepare the cars and go testing before the season starts in Australia on March 26.
Administrators FRP Advisory have agreed to pay all staff salaries to the end of January, after which employees may have to be laid off and preparations put on hold.
The team, the smallest and least successful in the sport, currently employs 212 people at its factory in Banbury, central England.
“Talks with interested parties will continue with all concerned aware that appropriate funding is needed to take the team forward to be in a position to complete testing with the beginning of the 2017 season still in everyone’s mind,” a spokesman for FRP Advisory said Monday.
“However, there is as yet nothing further to announce.”
Manor, which previously competed as Marussia, went into administration for the second time in little more than a year in early January.
Its 2016 drivers, Germany’s Pascal Wehrlein and France’s Esteban Ocon, have secured seats with Sauber and Force India respectively.
Manor is owned by Stephen Fitzpatrick, who runs independent British energy supplier Ovo and rescued the team in early 2015 after it had missed the final races of the 2014 season and gone into administration.
The team, which started out in 2010 as Virgin Racing, lost 10th place in the 11 team championship last year when Sauber overtook it at the penultimate race in Brazil.
That setback cost Manor tens of millions in prize money to fund the team.
Manor Grand Prix Racing Ltd, which holds the rights to participate in the championship, is not in the administration which affects the team’s operating company Just Racing Services Ltd.
Nice names street after Bianchi
The late French Formula One driver Jules Bianchi now has a street named after him following a ceremony in his home city of Nice Monday.
Compatriot and former racing rival Jean-Eric Vergne posted a photograph on Instagram of the street sign at the Rue Jules Bianchi, with the dates 1989-2015 and the words ‘Pilote de Formule 1.’
“Merci Nice ... we miss you Jules,” he added.
Bianchi, 25, died in hospital in Nice after nine months in a coma following a Japanese Grand Prix crash in October 2014 that left him with severe head injuries.
Tipped as a future Ferrari driver and race winner, Bianchi had been competing for the British-based Marussia team that is now Manor and facing an uncertain future after going into administration this month.
The street near the city’s Allianz Riviera stadium links up with the Rue Camille Muffat, named after the Nice-born 2012 Olympic swimming champion who died in a helicopter crash in Argentina in March 2015 at the age of 25.
“Jules loved football. We are delighted with the position, in such a dynamic zone, so full of promise,” local media quoted Bianchi’s father Philippe as saying.
