Manor’s entry into administration for the second time in three years marked another – potentially final – chapter in the team’s tumultuous period in Formula 1. Motorsport Week takes a look back at the Banbury squad’s spell in the sport so far.
When the FIA opened up an entry process for aspiring Formula 1 teams in early 2009, prolific junior outfit Manor Motorsport, led by John Booth and Graeme Lowdon, lodged an application in association with Wirth Research, whose founder Nick Wirth had been involved with Simtek and Benetton in the 1990s
Manor, along with Lotus Racing, Hispania and USF1, had been partly motivated by the FIA’s desire to implement then FIA President Max Mosley’s £40m budget cap, announced during the height of political tensions within the sport. But F1’s established teams demanded that the budget cap was ditched, threatening to quit if it was not, and even unveiled plans for a breakaway series for 2010. The escalating war between Formula 1 teams and the FIA was eventually quelled. As part of the peace plan all plans for a budget cap were shelved, and across the course of the next decades, any further attempts for a spending clampdown have so far proved futile.
Despite no budget cap, Manor Motorsport was nonetheless granted an entry and later in the year Virgin chief Richard Branson acquired naming rights, the tycoon having sponsored the title-winning Brawn outfit in 2009. At a glitzy launch in London, with leather jackets all the rage, the target was for Virgin team to do “respectably well,” despite its intentions to stick to the original £40m/year budget, compared to rivals spending substantially more than such a figure.
Aspirations were high but all three new teams – the fourth, USF1, fell by the wayside – were given a rude awakening, and rather than establishing themselves in the midfield, they formed a new group at the back, where the label of “the new teams” stuck for several years. Virgin’s VR-01, equipped with a Cosworth V8 engine, was the first to be entirely designed using CFD (computational fluid dynamics), but Wirth’s package was off the pace of the midfield, even if it was a match for Lotus. Timo Glock qualified as the quickest of the new teams in Bahrain, albeit a whopping 2.7s behind nearest rivals Toro Rosso. Glock made it 16 laps in the race before the gearbox packed in, while rookie team-mate Lucas di Grassi completed just two laps prior to a hydraulics failure.
A thrice-lapped di Grassi notched up Virgin’s first finish in its third Formula 1 race in Malaysia, and it set the tone for the remainder of the campaign. Form ebbed and flowed between Virgin, Lotus and Hispania, as all ended without a point, but it was Branson’s squad which finished at the foot of the 12-team championship after its rivals achieved better individual race results.
Lotus was clear of HRT and Virgin, having taken a best classification of 12th, while HRT edged Virgin on account of three 14th place finishes to Virgin’s two, courtesy of di Grassi in Malaysia and Glock in Japan. The lowly classification meant the team, already operating on a low budget, received substantially less prize money than rivals; while the distribution structure acted as an incentive to take 10th spot. Rather than cruise-and-collect, it only proved to hinder further progress, thus setting the wheels in motion for the scenario to be repeated over several years.
Despite the disappointment, the mood was bullish, a situation accelerated when Marussia acquired a controlling stake at the end of 2010, with a view to establishing a Russian squad on the grid for the country’s first Formula 1 race in 2014. After the VR-01 was initially designed with an insufficiently large fuel tank, before being beset by reliability dramas, hopes were high that 2011 could deliver a step forwards.
Instead, the Wirth-led MVR02 was dismally short of downforce as rivals Lotus moved clear, leaving Virgin to compete with Hispania. Wirth’s bold CFD approach was abandoned and he parted company with the team mid-season, with Virgin signing a deal to use McLaren’s wind tunnel facilities, as Pat Symonds arrived on a consultancy basis.
The rest of the year was consequently a holding pattern for Glock and new team-mate Jérôme d’Ambrosio. As is often the case at the back of the grid, one attrition-filled race decided the championship standings and Vitantonio Liuzzi’s 13th position in Canada meant Hispania again edged Virgin. Two 14th places, one apiece for d’Ambrosio and Glock in Australia and Canada respectively, proved to be the peak for Virgin once more.
Virgin’s involvement decreased as Marussia successfully applied for a name change prior to the 2012 campaign, though the rebranded outfit began the year on the back foot. Marussia missed the entirety of pre-season testing after the KERS-less MR01 failed a crash test, meaning the Australian Grand Prix was its first real outing, aside from a shakedown at Silverstone, hardly ideal for rookie Charles Pic, who had replaced d’Ambrosio.
The new MR01 lacked downforce and was still well adrift of the renamed Caterham squad, though was at least able to overhaul HRT. Updates took time to arrive but they yielded gains, while it almost snatched 10th position from Caterham courtesy of Glock’s superb drive to 12th place in Singapore, a circuit which suited the German’s tenacious approach. But a rain-affected Brazilian Grand Prix (feelings of déjà vu, anybody…?) allowed Caterham to reclaim the place as Vitaly Petrov finished 11th, following a late pass on Pic, the Frenchman having ironically penned a deal to move to Caterham for 2013.
Marussia’s 2012 season had also been blighted by test driver Maria de Villota’s serious incident during straight-line running at Duxford, when she struck a stationary vehicle. De Villota lost her right eye in the collision and, having recovered sufficiently to make public appearances, tragically died in October 2013.
The ongoing financial restraints at the team led to a painless divorce with Timo Glock at the start of 2013, with Max Chilton initially the outfit’s only signing. Chilton had competed in GP2 with the Marussia-affiliated Carlin squad, though the technical alliance lasted just a sole season. Marussia nonetheless looked to GP2 for Chilton’s team-mate as it recruited runner-up Luiz Razia, the Brazilian bringing backing to the outfit. Razia tested the MR02 at Jerez, but further payments never materialised, and he was swiftly dropped. This allowed the team to sign Ferrari protégé Jules Bianchi, based on talent, after he had been overlooked by Force India.
Marussia profited from the brilliance of Bianchi early on as rivals Caterham struggled to get up to speed, with the battle for the top 10 in the standings reduced to just two teams after HRT’s closure. A stellar race from Bianchi in Malaysia netted him 13th position, a result which enabled Marussia to finally classify 10th in the standings, ahead of Caterham, despite some nervy moments across the remainder of the campaign as its rivals made gains. Chilton also set a record as he finished all of the 19 Grands Prix, the first rookie ever to do so.
Marussia retained both Bianchi and Chilton for 2014 but changes went on behind the scenes as the outfit prepared for Formula 1’s overhauled regulations. John McQuilliam was tasked with the design of the MR03 after Symonds moved to Williams, while Cosworth’s exit from the sport meant Marussia acquired Ferrari’s 1.6 litre V6 power units and gearboxes.
Marussia enjoyed some of its finest showings as it battled with Sauber and Caterham early on, with Bianchi’s robust move on Kamui Kobayashi in Monaco eventually leading to ninth place, securing the team’s first ever points in Formula 1 at its 83rd Grand Prix, sparking wild celebrations. With this result Marussia moved into ninth spot in the standings, but there were storm clouds brewing in the background.
Chilton initially stepped aside in Belgium, allowing the team to raise funds by selling his seat, but he was quickly reinstated, despite Marussia briefly announcing Alexander Rossi as its new driver. The worsening financial predicament threatened the team’s future, but it suffered a devastating turn of events a month later in Japan. In torrential weather conditions Bianchi went off-track and struck a recovery vehicle, which was tending to the stricken Sauber of Adrian Sutil. An unconscious Bianchi was transported to hospital, where after surgery he was diagnosed with a diffuse axonal injury.
A shell-shocked Marussia team regrouped seven days in Sochi later but fielded only one car for Chilton, and lasted only nine laps, while its sister GP3 squad was absent altogether. Marussia owner Andrei Cheglakov had cut the funding for the team, claiming Bianchi’s crash deeply affected him, but the money had been running dry even before the fateful day at Suzuka, accentuated by the increased costs of the V6 power units and the stagnant global economy, still in the doldrums following the financial crash.
Marussia missed the United States and Brazilian Grands Prix and entered administration; whereas mud was slung between past and present owners as Caterham too sunk towards oblivion, Marussia exited in dignified fashion, finishing ninth in the standings, in front of Sauber and Caterham. Marussia came close to re-appearing for the Abu Dhabi finale, but the 11th hour talks fizzled out.
In a sport where positive surprises are a rare commodity, one such situation arose in February 2015 when murmurings of Marussia’s revival rippled through the paddock. Marussia was a more attractive proposition than Caterham courtesy of successive top 10 classifications in the standings, meaning money was on offer if it made the grid, and Ovo Energy founder Stephen Fitzpatrick emerged as its new investor. With its name tweaked, Manor Marussia worked frantically to ready an updated version of its MR03, tweaked to comply with revised regulations, for the season-opening race in Australia, but the time taken to recover wiped software meant neither Will Stevens nor Roberto Merhi turned a wheel. Their absence raised ire in some quarters, but their appearance in Malaysia quelled concerns and the team re-established itself on the grid.
Running a year-old chassis, and year-old Ferrari power units, Stevens, Merhi and Alexander Rossi were left marooned at the back of the grid. Manor Marussia did not out-qualify a single rival at any race, with the MR03Bs regularly several seconds off the pace. Only at the US Grand Prix did Manor Marussia finish on the same lap as the victor, ostensibly due to a late Safety Car period, as at most races the drivers were lapped two, three, or even four times. Merhi’s 12th in Britain, a position matched by Rossi in the United States, were the highest finishes, as plans to introduce a new package mid-season were shelved. Focus, naturally, switched to making a leap forwards in 2016.
Manor Marussia ramped up its recruitment process once more, with Bob Bell briefly joining as a consultant, while latterly Luca Furbatto, Pat Fry and Nikolas Tombazis all added to McQuilliam’s skills on the technical side. Stalwarts Booth and Lowdon announced their departure at Abu Dhabi leading to former McLaren man Dave Ryan being installed as Racing Director. And amid all of the changes there was a devastating blow in July, when Bianchi succumbed to the injuries he sustained in Japan, aged just 25. His starring role in Monaco, crucial to the team’s presence on the grid, has never been forgotten.
For 2016, the ‘Marussia’ moniker was finally dropped in favour of the Manor name, as Mercedes protégé Pascal Wehrlein joined the team, along with Rio Haryanto. The orange, blue and white MRT05 was a clear step away from the traditional red and black colours, while the tidy package was bolstered by Manor’s technical partnership with Williams. Crucially the new MRT05 was powered by the engine to have, the current-year Mercedes unit. Manor labelled the car a “huge step forwards”.
But despite the feelings of optimism, there was a sting in the tail. The FIA expanded the grid to 11 teams, and, with the arrival of the US Haas F1 team, 2015’s mere presence on the grid no longer automatically guaranteed Manor Marussia the financially lucrative 10th place in the standings. Clearly with the arrival of Gene Haas and Günther Steiner’s Charlotte based squad, one team was going to have to finish the season in that dreaded 11th spot.
Manor nonetheless demonstrated tangible progress straightaway as Wehrlein raced in the lower end of the midfield, mixing it with both Renault and Sauber. Things looked good when Wehrlein qualified 12th in Austria, the team’s best one-lap showing in its history, and then bagged a point courtesy of a starring drive to 10th. With Sauber floundering with new investors, it seemingly left Manor sitting firmly in 10th place. Even though the Swiss team solved their financial issues, courtesy of new investors Longbow Finance, things still looked good for Manor.
After swapping Haryanto for Esteban Ocon after the summer break, Manor was regularly in the spotlight at tracks where straight-line speed was favoured over aerodynamic prowess, and held onto 10th until the penultimate round in Brazil. Both Wehrlein and Ocon raced inside the top 10 in torrential conditions putting up a good show for the squad. But with just two laps to go, the young Frenchman dropped out of the points and, cruelly, Sauber’s Felipe Nasr crossed the line ninth, a mere three seconds ahead of Ocon. Nasr’s two points immediately elevated Sauber to 10th at Manor’s expense and for the second time in five seasons, a wet race in Brazil apparently put paid to Manor’s survival…
Team owner Fitzpatrick the made a rare media appearance at the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix confirming that a deal had been agreed with new investors although conceding to sister publication Motorsport Monday that the situation “had been complicated” by losing 10th place in the standings at Interlagos.
No further announcements were made by the team despite widespread speculation as to who the investors were. Then out of the blue stories started to circulate that the deal had fallen through and these rumours were suddenly confirmed in a team statement issued on January 6th that the administrators had been called in. Fitzpatrick then confirmed terms had been indeed been agreed with an Asian investment consortium in December but that time ran out before a deal could be completed. He added that the result in Brazil “brought into doubt the team’s ability to race in 2017” after labelling a 10th place finish as “imperative”.
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Despite Manor’s strides in 2016, they have ultimately not been enough and they clearly raised doubts over the future of the team. Minnows on today’s Formula 1 grid simply cannot exist on limited funding and the benevolence and/or ambition of its investors forever. Despite this, it is far too simplistic to merely pin the demise on just a couple of factors. The trajectory of any entity is multi-layered, with hundreds of cogs, be it money, management, drivers, circumstance, weather, strategy, turning in a certain way to lead to the end result. Manor’s trajectory just hasn’t made the cut.
Perhaps Manor could have gradually morphed into a Force India-type team, punching above its weight with limited resources, the ultimate proof that efficiency can trump money.
Perhaps it could have been acquired by a manufacturer or large company, keen to use a base foundation to use Formula 1 as a marketing tool, a la Toro Rosso.
Or perhaps it would have simply trundled on at the back, occasionally showing signs of potential, which would remain frustratingly untapped. There is still a fragment of time remaining to rescue the team, but if it runs out, such questions will remain unanswered.
What we do know is that Manor has given several drivers, including a handful of potential stars, their chance to race in Formula 1, and provided moments of delight across its seven years. Here’s hoping that it will continue to do so for many years to come.
