Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone has come to the aid of Caterham.
The Caterham Formula One team are returning to the grid for the 2014 season finale in Abu Dhabi.
Caterham fell into administration last month and missed the subsequent races in the United States of America and Brazil.
A controversial crowd-funding project which was launched at the Brazilian Grand Prix has raised £1.9million and has provided the springboard to get them into the F1 paddock.
The figure is still a short of the previously announced target of £2.35million which was set to get Caterham back on the grid in Abu Dhabi, however administrator Finbarr O’Connell is confident the figure can be achieved as he is close to signing a contract which will ‘press the green button’.
That is likely to be an auction for drive for the entire race weekend.
Whilst Kamui Kobayashi will remain with the team, his 2014 team-mate Marcus Ericsson has severed ties with the team ahead of his move to Sauber for 2015.
That leaves O’Connell of Smith & Williamson free to negotiate with a second pay driver to hopefully plug the financial gap.
A perhaps unexpected added help has come from Formula boss Bernie Ecclestone who has waived the freight costs and chartered a plane for staff attending the season-ending race.
‘They wanted to go, so we’ve transported them at no cost to them,’
‘We’ve at least helped them to some degree, something we need not have done,’ Ecclestone told the BBC.
‘We’ve even chartered another plane to take them.
‘We’ve gone a little bit over the top, but anyway, we’ve done it.’
Meanwhile Marussia’s hopes of an eleventh hour reprieve have ended.
The team was formally wound up two weeks ago by their administrator, but talks with a potential investor had been ongoing.
However those talks have now ended and with it any hope of saving the team.
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