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User avatar
By myownalias
#434204
I see that Manor Marussia have been given the final seal of approval to be on the grid in Melbourne. This is good news! :)

That's great news, it's a true underdog story, having to fight through adversity to be on the grid. I know it's unlikely but I would love to see them grab a point in Melbourne.
User avatar
By zurich_allan
#434205
I must admit I thought they were an absolute certainty for liquidation with no hope of return; how they have come back from the brink to rebuild has been fantastic! I really hope that their sponsorship is stable for the whole season.
User avatar
By CigarGuy
#434206
I see that Manor Marussia have been given the final seal of approval to be on the grid in Melbourne. This is good news! :)

That's great news, it's a true underdog story, having to fight through adversity to be on the grid. I know it's unlikely but I would love to see them grab a point in Melbourne.


Agreed. Gotta have a couple small teams to root for! Certainly makes qualifying more exciting with a full field.
User avatar
By sagi58
#434244
:clap:
, Alan Baldwin wrote:">Marussia pass crash tests and set for Melbourne

The Manor Marussia Formula One team were given the green light to compete at next week's Australian season-opener after passing mandatory crash tests on Thursday.

"Our big news of today is that we have now passed the FIA crash tests. Well done team! That's it - we're all set for Melbourne," Manor said on their Twitter feed.

The team, who came out of administration only last Friday after missing the last three races of 2014, will race with Ferrari engines in the March 15 season-opener.

Britain's Will Stevens has been announced as one of their two drivers.
User avatar
By sagi58
#434246
, Alan Baldwin wrote:">Manor Marussia set for Australia under new owner

Former Sainsbury's chief executive Justin King has been appointed interim chairman of the revived Manor Marussia Formula One team as they prepare for a remarkable comeback in Australia next week.

With OVO Energy founder Stephen Fitzpatrick coming to the rescue as principal investor, and effective owner, Marussia told reporters at a briefing on Wednesday that plans remained on course for them to have two cars racing in Melbourne.

Mandatory FIA crash tests have yet to be passed but are scheduled for this week, with the team confident the cars will make the freight deadline.

"We are ready to go racing," said team president and sporting director Graeme Lowdon, who will run Manor with principal John Booth just as they did the former Marussia outfit.

"The last few months have been a bit of a rollercoaster, to say the least," he added.

Fitzpatrick said King, seen by some as a possible successor to F1's 84-year-old commercial supremo Bernie Ecclestone, had declined an invitation to buy half the team but was involved in an advisory capacity.

King has been involved in motorsport for some time with his son Jordan competing in the GP2 feeder series this season.

Britain's Will Stevens will be one of the drivers, although his super licence has yet to be confirmed, with the second yet to be named.

Marussia went into administration and missed the last three races of 2014, but still finished ninth overall in the championship.

Fitzpatrick said he was funding the team personally, and not his company, and Manor would have a budget of around 60 million pounds ($91.55 million) with more than half of that coming from prize money.

"The idea is not that this will be the black hole of Fitzpatrick family finances," he added, making clear he was fully aware of the commercial realities of running a struggling Formula One team.

"We need to finish in the top 10 and we think we can achieve that," he smiled, a given since there are only 10 teams competing this year after Caterham's demise.

The car will be a 2014 chassis with safety upgrades to meet the new regulations initially, before a full 2015 one is produced.

"We haven't just taken a 2014 car and shoved a different nose on," said Lowdon. "It's a new car with a high degree of carry over and safety upgrades."
User avatar
By sagi58
#434561
 wrote:">Feature: Why 2015 is a big year for...

In the fast-paced world of Formula 1, each race, and every season, counts. Ahead of this weekend's season-opening Australian Grand Prix, GPUpdate.net looks at why 2015 is important for those competing.

Manor

Why is it a big year for Manor? Simple. They exist. making it to Australia – let alone completing the whole campaign – the senior management have pulled off an amazing feat. The team came within days of having its 2014 cars auctioned off and yet it will be racing this month. Sure, it will be an enormous underdog and even getting within 107 per cent in qualifying will be a challenging proposition. But Formula 1 fans love the plucky minnow and, with Caterham sadly gone, Manor will channel the spirit of Minardi in the eyes of many. If the team can compete this season then it is highly likely to collect its prize money from 2014 – though this remains a technicality which rivals are sure to question – and will be guaranteed 10th place, and its riches, for 2015, thus providing it with the desired financial injection. For its drivers, it will simply be about enjoying the experience and being a Formula 1 driver, though sometimes opportunities within small teams can lead to something higher up the grid – a chance which Will Stevens and his yet to be announced team-mate will be aiming for.

Imagethe other teams on the grid
User avatar
By sagi58
#434972
That's the spirit!!

 wrote:">Manor: "Today was effectively our first day of testing"

The 2015 season is off to a stuttering start in Melbourne, with only 8 of the 10 teams actually firing up their engines in Friday practice. Sauber is embroiled in the Giedo van der Garde chaos, while the engines at resurrected Manor stayed silent for entirely different reasons.

After its computers were wiped clean for sale amid administration, Manor is now in frantic talks with engine supplier Ferrari to re-install crucial data that will allow the complex 'power units' to even be fired up. "Just because we're here doesn't mean you just turn the key and go," boss Graeme Lowdon told Britain's Sky.

It is rumoured Manor's operational issues are so complex the team may not be ready to turn a wheel for several races. "We just have to keep working through methodically," said Lowdon, who said Manor will do its "absolute best" to be able to qualify and race in Melbourne. As the other cars practiced on Friday, Manor confirmed: "Today was effectively our first day of testing".

So even if the software problems can be resolved, the team is facing a shopping list of other problems. There are rumours the British government is still pursuing the team for unpaid taxes. Other speculation suggests Ferrari is also pushing for bills to be paid.

And then there is the matter of the hurriedly-modified 2014 car, powered by the similarly year-old Ferrari engine. Asked if the 107 per cent qualifying rule might be a problem, driver Will Stevens admitted: "It depends how much faster the guys at the top have become."

Winter testing suggests the field has moved forward by a factor of at least two seconds per lap. "We're going to do the best job we can," said Stevens, "but whether that's within 107pc or not I don't know."

User avatar
By sagi58
#435231
Giving credit where credit is due:

 wrote:">Manor 'would not exist without Bianchi'

Manor Marussia boss John Booth says the team's remarkable comeback to the grid would have been impossible were it not for Jules Bianchi's ninth-place finish in Monaco last season.

Bianchi remains in a coma after the crash he suffered at the 2014 Japanese Grand Prix, just nine races after he scored Marussia's first F1 points in Monte Carlo. Marussia fell into administration shortly after his Suzuka accident but in the weeks leading up to this season's Australian Grand Prix secured new investment which allowed it to return to the grid as Manor Marussia.

Booth says those points were crucial in underlining Manor Marussia's potential to investors and hopes the team's presence on the grid will offer relief to Bianchi's family.

"Without him, without those two points he got in Monaco last year, we would not be here," Booth was quoted as saying by Auto Hebdo. "In the end, that is what convinced the new investors about the potential of the team.

"Being here now is our way of saying to Jules that the race is not over until the chequered flag has fallen. I don't know if our presence at the track is any help to his parents, but I hope it is, however small and insignificant. We are the first to emerge from the worst ordeal Manor has ever been through, and I have no doubt that Jules will succeed as well."
User avatar
By darwin dali
#435478
The Independent:

Bernie Ecclestone has revealed that the Manor Formula One team will be docked almost £2m in prize-money for failing to race at the season-opener in Australia.

The team went into administration in October with debts of £64m but were rescued last month by the boss of energy firm Ovo. They raced against time to get their cars ready and meet the deadline for F1 to transport their equipment to Melbourne for free.

However, they never made the grid owing to computer software problems. Ecclestone has already said they will have to pay for the freight and has now revealed they will lose prize-money too.

“We will deduct the race they missed from the prize-money,” he said. “They will miss one 19th of it and they are going to get a bill for the free travel that we gave them.”

Manor joined Formula One in 2010 as Marussia but did not score any points until last year when they won two in Monaco.

They finished ninth in 2014, giving them an estimated £35.4m in prize-money, which is due to be paid this year. There were 19 races last season, which is why Ecclestone has deducted one 19th of the prize-money, which comes to £1.9m.

The move will give a boost to Manor’s rivals as Ecclestone added that “the money they should have got will get distributed amongst the teams that are racing”.

By travelling to Australia and passing scrutineering, Manor avoided being thrown out of the championship.

An investigation by the sport’s governing body, the FIA, found the team had broken “an undertaking ... to participate in every event with the number of cars and drivers entered”.

However, it added Manor had used “all reasonable endeavours” to take part, so they avoided a penalty.

They insist they are on course to race in Malaysia this weekend.
:thumbdown:
User avatar
By myownalias
#435494
That's really petty Bernie, given that Manor were in administration a few weeks previous, you'd think that Bernie would have given Manor a break. The FIA were satisfied that Manor did all they could to get out of track, so why can't Bernie give them the benefit of the doubt, £1.9m is a lot of money to a cash strapped team, it's like Bernie wants them to fail!
User avatar
By LewEngBridewell
#435512
That's really petty Bernie, given that Manor were in administration a few weeks previous, you'd think that Bernie would have given Manor a break. The FIA were satisfied that Manor did all they could to get out of track, so why can't Bernie give them the benefit of the doubt, £1.9m is a lot of money to a cash strapped team, it's like Bernie wants them to fail!


Yeah, I agree, it's almost as if he wants them to collapse as soon as possible! :yikes:
User avatar
By sagi58
#436018
 wrote:">Manor's one-car Sepang race was a 'clear strategy'

Manor has dismissed as "nonsense" rumours it only had the ability to run one car at a time last weekend in Malaysia. The governing FIA and F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone had reportedly warned the resurrected former Marussia team after Australia that another weekend spent silent in the pits would not be tolerated.

Engines duly fired at Sepang, but only Roberto Merhi actually took to Sunday's grid, as the sister car driven by Will Stevens succumbed to a "fuel system" problem before qualifying that could not be fixed for the race. According to the paddock grapevine, however, there is more to the story.

Ecclestone had slammed as "disgusting" Manor's 2015 campaign so far, amid rumours the team is only showing up at races to collect millions in official prize money it qualified for last season. So after Manor failed to get either car running in Melbourne, the suggestion now is that the team only had the means to run one car at a time in Malaysia.

According to Auto Motor und Sport's Michael Schmidt, that may be because Manor only had a single copy of the 2015 engine software necessary to run last year's customer Ferrari power units. So while it was possible to run one car one at a time in practice, once the parc ferme regulations came into force for qualifying and beyond, one driver - Briton Stevens - was permanently relegated to the pits.

Deputy team boss Graeme Lowdon dismissed the rumours as "nonsense", but Speed Week also reports that Manor is currently little more than a shell of a team, with a mere 30 employees working at Dinnington. But Force India's Bob Fernley, having earlier blocked Manor's attempts to field fully 2014-spec cars this season, confirmed the suspicions of the paddock that running just one car in Malaysia was a "clear strategy" by Manor.

Even Sepang boss Razlan Razali denounced Manor's 2015 campaign so far as a "joke". "If you're not ready, you're not ready, don't participate," he told AFP. "It makes a mockery out of the sport, I think."
User avatar
By myownalias
#436028
It seems to me that certain people want to kick Manor while their down, the idea that Manor are only there to collect the championship money is ludicrous, surely the cost of dragging two cars and the personnel to run those cars would be more than the prize money?
User avatar
By sagi58
#439403
 wrote:">Formula 1: A closer look at the drivers' cars for the 2016 season

Formula 1 constructors have revealed the designs of their new cars for the 2016 campaign.

But what should we be looking out for ahead of pre-season testing? BBC Sport highlights a selection of key features...

...Manor

Image

Manor's car for 2016 - the MRT05 - broke cover in Barcelona on Monday, showing off a strong mix of red, white and blue colours.

The car features a brand-new Mercedes power unit and Manor are confident they have the ability to challenge further up the grid.

Manor technical director John McQuilliam said: "This is the best car we've ever launched. Certainly the most developed, the most ambitious and the most aggressive."

...

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