[Team] Marussia - what next?

[Casper]

It doesn't seem like a very comprehensive F1 development workshop at all to me. Surely there has to be more than a couple of second hand lathes and one pedestal drill. On those photos I don't think Haas would even bother. There are a lot of desks though so they may be worth something.

[bella]

no, this is what i've been trying to point out all along. marussia is far closer to a standard junior racing team than a f1 team. they've always bought everything in from third parties, they don't have a fabrication department of their own.

and why they'd have been a better buy from a running cost point of view. their overheads were tiny.

[Mike Harte]

Originally Posted by bella

and why they'd have been a better buy from a running cost point of view. their overheads were tiny.

That really doesn't make sense; in fact, one could easily argue the exact opposite, although, granted, their fixed overheads should have been lower.

Having to buy in virtually everything from 3rd parties may well have cost them considerably more than if they had produced the items in-house. Don't forget, the 3rd parties are trying to make a profit, and that would have to have been passed on to Marussia.

Apart from which, Marussia would have had no day to day control over things like quality control, nor production time-lines. And outsourcing must haver surely added to time delays for new or replacement parts.

I appreciate that today's world seems to think that outsourcing is the greatest thing since sliced bread, but in my humble opinion, based on first hand experience, it isn't the panacea that so many believe - in fact, in my experience, it's exactly the reverse.

[bella]

Originally Posted by Mike Harte

That really doesn't make sense; in fact, one could easily argue the exact opposite, although, granted, their fixed overheads should have been lower.

the fixed overheads are exactly what i'm talking about. it's very easy to reduce your costs according to the intricacies of your cashflow when you have low fixed overheads. if you're looking to take on a new project you want one that's operating in a streamlined and cost effective manner from the getgo.

the company i work for has about a 50-50 split between in house manufactured parts and bought in components. i'm responsible for buying both. i prefer external suppliers because you know exactly where you stand. in house and external stuff both have lead times, and every time you have to ask for a favour and for something to be sped through the system (though some things genuinely do take that long to make from start to finish) you know that something else is suffering as a result.

if you don't have the capital to invest in the kit like huge ass autoclaves and tons of machines then you have no choice but to use third parties. if you manage perfectly well with those third parties there's no reason to go chasing the capital to make it happen. by design they don't have the funds for updates every race, so there's no need for excessive control over their leadtimes.

tl;dr - fair points but i think they've shown it worked fine.

[Tucky]

Considering Haas sells manufacturing equipment, I'd doubt he'd want whatever Marussia had anyway. Combined with their workshops in USA, he's got a decent foundation to start.

Originally Posted by Mike Harte

I appreciate that today's world seems to think that outsourcing is the greatest thing since sliced bread, but in my humble opinion, based on first hand experience, it isn't the panacea that so many believe - in fact, in my experience, it's exactly the reverse.

Your humble opinion's worth quite a lot then considering a lot of large companies have now started backtracking on outsourcing in the last couple of years! Seems they've finally figured out cheap success doesn't last...

[old man]

Frankly it seems to me that this firm of receivers are not doing as good a job as the Caterham group. To put this lot up for auction just now will only net a sum that is nowhere near the value of the whole. Perhaps they believe in Santa?

The cars are no good without the highly specialised engines and so are museum pieces, the spares can only be scrap, machine tools will have a market price as will lots of the other equipment like the trucks. No pictures of the hospitality unit, was that rented? Similarly the premisses I suppose

I took part in the auction of the stuff from an LMP race team that folded a few years ago and it was later found that the original owners bought it all back at the "knock down" price. Similarly a restaurant near here was built at vast expense, went bust because they could not service the debt and was bought from the receiver by someone of a similar persuasion at a quarter of the cost and is now run very successfully.

[GTRMagic]

Clearly the Marussia administrator does not consider taking the entrepreneurial path as Mr O'Connell did with Caterham, will lead to a sale of the operation.

You might imagine that some of the gear in the Marussia shed has been reclaimed by suppliers/financiers with the appropriate liens/caveats too.

[old man]

Max Chilton was quick to point out last night on the F1 show the team was not in liquidation, so the entry, points and potential funding from FOM is still in place if someone buys this lot from the administrator.

The auction notice is "provisional"

[ger80]

The equipment shown in the auction advert is really lean - it might be easier to rescue Caterham with all the things they have in Leafield. You could turn that into cash if required or do subcontracted work for others

[old man]

Mr O'connel seemed to have an "interested party" who he hinted was experienced in the ways of F1, could the administrator be trying to attract the same party? Given the FOM money and the backing Max brings it may be a better proposition.

Then we have young Mr Palmer looking for work and, well he has connections with F1 experience and......... Mmmmmmm

[Paradise City]

Originally Posted by GTRMagic

Clearly the Marussia administrator does not consider taking the entrepreneurial path as Mr O'Connell did with Caterham, will lead to a sale of the operation.

You might imagine that some of the gear in the Marussia shed has been reclaimed by suppliers/financiers with the appropriate liens/caveats too.

O'Connell's company or its subsidiary were experts in lots of areas including crowd funding. They seem to be a forward thinking team.

Marussia got a more traditional administrator. In other words, a completely useless one.

[Mike Harte]

Originally Posted by Paradise City

O'Connell's company or its subsidiary were experts in lots of areas including crowd funding. They seem to be a forward thinking team.

Marussia got a more traditional administrator. In other words, a completely useless one.

This is where, in my humble opinion, the chickens come home to roost, so as to speak.

Marussia, as a racing team, has almost nothing to sell, and has few tangible assets. This is as a direct result of outsourcing virtually everything, leaving the "garage" to just assemble the parts. All they now have to show for it is an out of date chassis which probably won't be eligible for next year's championship anyway. They don't even have any power-units that they can call their own because they were being "leased" from Ferarri (leased is probably not the right word, but that is what they were in effect).

The only items that are likely to have any value are the intellectual properties, but goodness only knows who they truly belong to in this case. Most likely, most of it will still be in the minds of those designers/engineers who now no longer work for the company.

With no tangible assets to back up a company in administration, who in their right minds would want to invest. And this is why crowd-funding would not have been the answer. Furthermore, did they even have two race-worthy chassis available to put on the grid at Abu Dhabi; I don't know?

[Paradise City]

Originally Posted by Mike Harte

This is where, in my humble opinion, the chickens come home to roost, so as to speak.

Marussia, as a racing team, has almost nothing to sell, and has few tangible assets. This is as a direct result of outsourcing virtually everything, leaving the "garage" to just assemble the parts. All they now have to show for it is an out of date chassis which probably won't be eligible for next year's championship anyway. They don't even have any power-units that they can call their own because they were being "leased" from Ferarri (leased is probably not the right word, but that is what they were in effect).

The only items that are likely to have any value are the intellectual properties, but goodness only knows who they truly belong to in this case. Most likely, most of it will still be in the minds of those designers/engineers who now no longer work for the company.

With no tangible assets to back up a company in administration, who in their right minds would want to invest. And this is why crowd-funding would not have been the answer. Furthermore, did they even have two race-worthy chassis available to put on the grid at Abu Dhabi; I don't know?

The entry is golden. That's likely invested in the "Manor Grand Prix" vehicle that turned up on the November entry list.

[old man]

Originally Posted by Paradise City

The entry is golden. That's likely invested in the "Manor Grand Prix" vehicle that turned up on the November entry list.

My point exactly, the 2 points and the entry are what is for sale and the rest of the hardware is what anybody would have to buy. Not sure why the chassis would not be eligible for next year?

I am not sure the administrators could actually put those up for auction?

[bella]

Originally Posted by Mike Harte

Furthermore, did they even have two race-worthy chassis available to put on the grid at Abu Dhabi; I don't know?

they had spares ready to fly to russia to do a proper job on building the second car apparently, but couldn't get them into the country. so with that as a leading piece of evidence i would say yes, yes they did.

for what it's worth, in most forms of single seater motorsport engines are not owned by teams and drivers. they are leased.

also, iirc the entry was always manor grand prix (or whatever it is) trading as marussia.

[Nikki Katz]

I was certain it was announced that the team was in liquidation. Checking Companies House though, Chilton's right, it's not. They'll probably still need investors sooner rather than later if they're going to be ready for Melbourne though, and that auction isn't a good sign.

[old man]

Now that Caterham have been told they could use the 2014 chassis the same must apply to Marussia so that takes away any new build worries and so those Golden points are even more attractive, points means prizes!

Speculative conversation over the weekend on the price one would pay for Caterham and $5 million was suggested but for Marussia the Golden Points would push up the price and the guy I was talking to felt the Marussia was a better car

Exciting is it not!

[mikuni]

Buy both. Get the Cateham tooling and the Marussia chassis. Add the $40 mill prize money and then select the best people from both teams. Solution? It would just depend on how much debt each team is in.

I don't know if being able to run a '14 car in '15 is news. Surely that is a given, it ha happened many times over the years even recently. Providing the chassis meets technical regs does it matter if it's not 'new'? What seems a chassis to be 'new' anyway?

I wonder if they will be able to use the current noses or if they still have to upgrade to new regs next year.

[GTRMagic]

Originally Posted by mikuni

Buy both. Get the Cateham tooling and the Marussia chassis. Add the $40 mill prize money and then select the best people from both teams. Solution? It would just depend on how much debt each team is in.

I don't know if being able to run a '14 car in '15 is news. Surely that is a given, it ha happened many times over the years even recently. Providing the chassis meets technical regs does it matter if it's not 'new'? What seems a chassis to be 'new' anyway?

I wonder if they will be able to use the current noses or if they still have to upgrade to new regs next year.

I think the gist of what they are saying in the article about using the '14 car in '15 is that the powerplant will stay the same next year too. So RBR and STR will get the '48%' upgrades, while Caterham keep running this year's unit.

That too will be a problem with competitiveness...

[Tucky]

So basically if both Marussia and Caterham some how make it onto the grid next year it'll pretty much be a 2 tier championship.

[GTRMagic]

Originally Posted by Tucky

So basically if both Marussia and Caterham some how make it onto the grid next year it'll pretty much be a 2 tier championship.

Its already a 2 tier championship, those who are MB-equipped & then everyone else ... This makes it 3 tiers. .

[bella]

thinking about it, allowing them to run a 2014 car would be a very interesting test situation for properly establishing and creating that extra class i've been banging on about. and isn't it quite close to the old cost cap idea?

what it could be is a situation where the big teams can sell the intellectual rights to their previous years chassis for a sensible price to some smaller outsourced teams.

the way i see that happening in real life is a team with a setup like marussia could buy the rights to the chassis, source everything from third parties, tweak things if they wanted, and compete in an affordable manner. they also have a significant resource and spend cap, but are rewarded with their own championship, podium and whathaveyou. by doing that you increase the market for those third party manufacturing services (maybe even have a "components must be manufactured in the same country as the factory is based in" rule with an environmental and local business excuse?), and encourage a training ground for the young engineering and manufacturing talent.

i think if they can create a decent marketing story for a cheaper class in f1 then it's not really going to degrade the product. what will degrade it is if they don't find a way for these teams to exist.

[Paradise City]

Teams have always been allowed to run the previous years cars as long as the new year isn't marked by a rules revolution. It's not so long ago that teams ran an updated version of the previous year cars until the European season began. And that was some of the big teams too.

[bella]

that's true. so why not make it a thing? they need to sit down and stop faffing with the rules for starters.

[GTRMagic]

HaasF1 to bid on Marussia Assets



Maybe somebody over there has beeb reading tenths