WEC: Millennium Racing forced to withdraw from Silverstone

Courtesy of DailySportsCar.com:

Millennium Racing has been forced to withdraw its P2 entry from this weekend's Silverstone World Endurance Championship event this weekend, following a delay in funding from parent company OMD.

"At the end of 2013 OMD made the commitment to several strategic investments, including the long-term Millennium Racing program in the WEC. According to this commitment the budget was to be released by the end of March 2014 but unfortunately there has been circumstances that have prevented the commitment being honored within the time constraints for Silverstone," the team said in a statement. "OMD funds were deposited on Jan. 7 in a major international bank, on an account legitimately owned by OMD. Political maneuvers have been since then initiated by some international institutions in order to block OMD actions.

A decision issued by the International Court of Justice La haye confirmed the legitimacy of OMD to own and use these funds, and instructed the World Bank to fully release OMD funds. This decision is currently being processed from an administrative and technical perspective. It is a fact now that no power, state or institution, what ever it is, can hinder OMD from becoming operational.

Managing Director of OMD Bertrand Vallois said that “OMD will be able to fulfill all its commitments in the coming days, including for the Millennium program which will then start according to the plan. This program is very important for our future developments and we are looking forward to the next steps.”

Millennium Racing Team Principal Simon Dowson added: “We are all devastated to miss the first round of the Championship, the team has worked really hard over the winter but we will have to wait until Spa to show our performance. Our program has always been based on a long term partnership and alongside our disappointment of missing Silverstone we have to stay positive about our future plans, I would like to thank all our partners and the FIA WEC for their support during a difficult few months, I could not have asked for anything more.”

This continues a bad start for the 2014 WEC with the number of withdrawals now at four (Lotus LMP, Strakka and now Millennium).