Despite being just over $780,000 short of their crowdfunding goal of $3.7 million, the Caterham Formula One team has announced today that they will be traveling to Abu Dhabi for the final race of the season anyway.
Finbarr O'Connell, a representative from the administration firm who controls Caterham's assets, mentioned today that this was a positive step towards attracting a buyer for the financially troubled team. In remarks reported by BBC Sport:
We knew that the best way to keep this team alive and attract possible buyers was to show that it's still a racing team and be in Abu Dhabi for the finale.
There aren't enough words to say how grateful we are to all the fans who have made this possible.
We now head to Abu Dhabi ready to show what a hard-working and positive group of people this is and to hopefully secure a future for the team.
With perks ranging from F1 drivers' suits at half the price a similar new one would cost to pieces of the cars themselves and logos on the car itself, it's not hard to see why Caterham's crowdfunding effort attracted so much support in so little time. They're offering cool stuff that fans want at attainable levels of giving.
The team is still optimistic that they can raise the last bit of funds towards their initial goal. They've extended their giving deadline out to November 23 (the weekend of the race in Abu Dhabi) and claims that they still need the support on their Crowdcube page.
Welcome back, Caterham. Well done.
As far as Caterhams' long term prospects go, Finbarr O'Connnell mentioned to BBC Sport that the team was close to a deal with a new investor. The team already lost driver Marcus Ericsson to Sauber in 2015, but Caterham hopes to find a buyer, fill that spot and make it onto the grid for 2015 as well.
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