Former F1 team boss reveals Bernie Ecclestone once banned him from the grid

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Bernie Ecclestone had full control over what happened on the Formula 1 grid as Finbarr O’Connell found out to his detriment.

O’Connell was in charge of the now-defunct Caterham team during the final race of the 2014 season as they fought off going into administration.

While they were never going to be fighting with the likes of Mercedes and Ferrari, speaking to PlanetF1, O’Connell explained the effort needed to get Caterham on the grid for one last race.

Right now, Formula 1 teams are unsure about adding an 11^th manufacturer to the grid with Andretti itching to enter the paddock.

However, many teams still remember what it was like having 12 teams on the grid and how difficult some of the backmarkers found it to sustain themselves in the sport.

Back in 2014, there were plenty of names on the grid that don’t exist in Formula 1 now.

Caterham lined up alongside Force India, Lotus, Marussia and Toro Rosso who now either no longer exist or have been renamed.

Finbarr O’Connell was in charge of trying to find a struggling Caterham team a buyer during the final race of the season.

They had missed races in Austin and Sao Paulo due to funding issues but raised enough cash to rejoin their colleagues in Abu Dhabi.

However, Bernie Ecclestone made sure that O’Connell was nowhere near the grid that day.

He personally made sure the de facto team principal wasn’t seen during one of Formula 1’s showpiece events.

O’Connell banned from the grid by Ecclestone

Speaking about the incident, O’Connell said: “Bernie didn’t want me out on the track.

“He wanted the car there, he wanted the car racing. But he didn’t want the TV camera saying ‘Who’s that on the grid standing beside the car? Oh, it’s the corporate undertaker,’ so I didn’t get out during the race… which is a real shame because insolvency practitioners don’t get out much at the best of times!

“He was trying to control me as much as he could. It was his circus, his show, he was the Ringmaster.

“So he wanted the cars there, and them racing. He didn’t want me to crowdfund, because that was the begging bowl. He didn’t want anything cheap or insolvent to be out there about F1.

“He personally looked at the applications at every Grand Prix for everybody to get a pass into the paddock and he pulled some of my people.

“He pulled one of my lawyers and I didn’t really know why. He used some quite colourful language when speaking to me on the phone and said lawyers should be sat behind a desk somewhere, and not at a Grand Prix.

“But I think, in reality, he gets into various disputes, he didn’t want lawyers out there who might serve some papers on him or something like that. So he controlled everything!

“I respected him for it. As I say he was the Ringmaster in this circus. In the end, [the lawyer] got the royal nod to come into the paddock.

“And because Bernie wanted Caterham racing that weekend, he helped out with organising tyres and fuel and I was eternally grateful to him for that.”

Plenty of change in Formula 1 since Ecclestone’s exit

It would be mad to think of Formula 1’s current owners banning a team principal from the grid the same way that Ecclestone did with O’Connell.

However, as he suggests, he was trying to help the team rather than hinder them with his actions and was desperate for Caterham to still be on the grid in 2015.

Unfortunately, that didn’t prove to be the case, with Marussia becoming Manor but Caterham forced to sell off their assets.

The team never established themselves during three seasons in Formula 1, failing to score a single point.

Vitaly Petrov came closest in Brazil in 2012 when he finished 11^th and the team had some strong drivers in their time including Heikki Kovalainen and Kamui Kobayashi.

Andretti will be hoping to learn a lot from the failure of Caterham if they manage to get onto the grid one day.