Stephen Fitzpatrick always wanted to be a Formula One racing driver, but at 37 the chance has, grand prix-style, probably flashed by. In which case, he has found the next-best-thing.
The founder and chief executive of Ovo Energy is the principal investor behind Manor Grand Prix, which has emerged from the ashes of the Marussia motor racing team.
“I have always hoped to own a F1 team, ever since I reduced my expectation of being a F1 driver,” he said. “I love F1, but there was always a sense of detachment just being a fan. Most entrepreneurs will tell you just watching is quite frustrating. You want to be involved.”
Late last year, after the collapse of Marussia into administration, Mr Fitzpatrick found himself talking to Justin King, the former Sainsbury’s chief executive and a fellow F1 enthusiast. Like Mr Fitzpatrick, Mr King had already spoken to the administrator and looked at a possible rescue. Mr King had concluded that it looked “too complicated to get it done” (never mind that he didn’t have “deep enough pockets”).
But Mr Fitzpatrick disagreed, believing that the team could break even, and he persuaded Mr King to join him, illustrating the difference, Mr King admits, “between corporate man and entrepreneurial man”.
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Contrary to popular opinion, Mr Fitzpatrick argues, F1 is not a game for billionaires only: “If you want to, there are countless ways to spend more money in F1, but there have also been lots of example in the past of teams that have not had a lot of money and have . . . done very well. What I am interested in is whether we can spend money to make the car go faster. What is the best return on investment in terms of performance. The challenge and the fun is getting the best bang for buck.”
Mr King prefers a football analogy. “Look at the Premier League. Clearly there are the likes of Chelsea and Manchester City — and we have that in Formula One — but look at where Southampton are this year. Prudently run business, invested in the right things, with good oversight.”
The job now is to get sponsors on board. “This isn’t about coming along and writing a big cheque for the benefit of seeing your logo go around at a very high speed,” Mr King said. “We want to build a story of a fighter brand — because that is what we are — coming back. Phoenix from the ashes. A good, old-fashioned British team.”
Having led a rescue, Mr King plans a lower profile in future. “There is a great management team in place. They are rebuilding the Manor team. None of this works if we can’t put a car on a grid.
“Stephen and I have led the charge of a small team of people who have been dealing with all the commercial stuff, the journey through company voluntary arrangement and so on and so forth. The objective was to get to this point to allow Stephen and I to start to step back from the day-to-day. It is not my intention to be the chairman in the long term. We would like to bring in a chairman with motor sport experience.”
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Mr Fitzpatrick, meanwhile, still has hankerings of his own. The son of a Belfast grocer who became an upstart energy supplier and challenger to the established Big Six did, after all, always want to be a Formula One driver. “I haven’t given up,” he said, “and I’m a lot closer now than I was three months ago.”