LONDON - The former Marussia Formula One team on Thursday won a battle to come out of bankruptcy administration and is hoping to get back onto the Grand Prix grid this year.
The former Marussia Formula One team on Thursday won a battle to come out of bankruptcy administration and is hoping to get back onto the Grand Prix grid this year
Four months after the collapse of the Russia-backed team, the administrators said creditors had given approval for "control of the company to be passed back to the directors" after new investment was found.
Marussia has reportedly been given new cash backing by former Sainsbury's supermarket chief executive Justin King and other new investors.
The team, now trading as Manor F1, have been allowed to start operating again under a so-called Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA).
"We are pleased that the financial restructuring of the company has been progressed after creditor approval of the CVA," said chief administrator Geoff Rowley.
"With new investment and a continuity of the respected management, the business has the ideal platform from which it can accelerate the operational rebuilding already underway to get a team back racing," he added.
Marussia collapsed on October 27 with debts of more than pound sterling60 million ($92 million), much of it to Ferrari which had made the team's engines.
Graeme Lowdon and John Booth, former sporting director and team principal of Marussia, have since fought to revive the team after Russian tycoon Andrei Cheglakov withdrew as the main backer.
Formula One teams recently voted against letting Manor compete in this year's Formula One championship with a modified version of last year's car.
But the team have moved back to a former base at Dinnington, south Yorkshire.
About 200 staff were laid off in October, but some have been taken back on to work on a car that could compete this year.
Lowdon is meeting the International Automobile Federatioin and other teams in a bid to secure a return to racing.
Formula One rules allow a team to miss three races, which would allow Manor to sit out the opening races in Australia, Malaysia and China and be back on the grid for the fourth event in Bahrain in April.
British media reports said Lowdon is optimistic the hurdles to a return to racing can be overcome.