Caterham are desperately trying to raise £2.35m with a crowd-funding project to avoid going the same way as Marussia, who have ceased trading and made over 200 staff redundant.

On the day Marussia finally went under, Caterham were still hoping to make it to the grid for the final race in Abu Dhabi on 23 November. Finbarr O’Connell, the administrator and interim Caterham team principal, said: “We are working nonstop to get the team back racing, initially in Abu Dhabi, but hopefully that will be just a stepping stone to get it back racing on a permanent basis, under new ownership. In order to achieve that one of our most useful, innovative and effective options right now is crowd-funding.”

The falling of the curtain on Marussia will dismay everyone in the paddock. This small, well-run team were the most popular in Formula One since joining as Virgin in 2010. However, like most teams they were hit by an inability to agree on a cost cap against a background of rising prices and falling sponsorship and attendances.

The great shame for Marussia, who are a best-ever ninth in the championship, is that they were in line for a payment of £27m at the end of the season; their debts are £31m.

Last month the team were hit by disaster when their driver Jules Bianchi was injured at the Japanese Grand Prix. He remains in a critical but stable condition. Their Russian backer, Andrey Cheglakov, pulled out after the race in Sochi.

Bernie Ecclestone, Formula One’s chief executive, will have talks with the existing smaller teams this weekend to establish a survival plan. Before the most recent race in Austin last Sunday, Force India, Sauber and Lotus – worried by the demise of Marussia and Caterham – discussed boycotting the race because of the lack of a coherent strategy on the part of the F1 owners, CVC Capital Partners.

Sauber’s team principal, Monisha Kaltenborn, said: “The dialogue is ongoing and now we’ll sit together here and see how it goes. Naturally it was important to get into this dialogue but it’s equally important to have actions taking place, not just talking. The fact [CVC] are in a dialogue with us says they see the issue and they have to find a solution to this.”

Asked how confident she was, she replied: “The signals are good but one thing is talking, one thing is then taking actions, which have to be done very quickly. So there is this dialogue but something definitely has to be done within this season.”