Technical chiefs at the defunct Manor team believe the squad had the ability to move into the midfield in 2017, having made gains across the course of the 2016 campaign.
Manor finished at the foot of the 11-team championship in 2016, having made substantial year-on-year progress, but was placed into administration in January.
Progress on the 2017 car had ceased in late 2016, but attempts went on to prepare a modified version of last year’s package to fit new regulations, in case a buyer was found.
No new owner was forthcoming and the team eventually ceased to exit, with the official entry eventually withdrawn, but technical chiefs believe the undeveloped 2017 car had potential.
"It’s very hard for us to forecast how fast the new car would have been," Manor’s Technical Director John McQuilliam explained to FormulaPassion.It.
"Based on the improvements we can quantify, however, I believe the car would have been capable of getting into Q2 and challenging for points in a race of such attrition."
McQuilliam’s views were echoed by Chief Designer Luca Furbatto.
"To put things into perspective, the 2016 car was done with a company of 93 employees, everyone included, whilst for the 2017 project we reached just over 210 employees in September," he said.
"In terms of ability to run at minimum weight we were very confident to retain a healthy level of ballast, similar to the one we enjoyed in 2016.
"Having gained five seconds per lap between 2015 to 2016 we were convinced that our tools to estimate competitors pace were pretty accurate, so I have no doubt that Manor would have been in the mix of the midfielders.
"Our expectation was to be around three seconds per lap off the front runners."
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