The Manor Marussia team has confirmed that it does intend to race in the 2015 Formula One season. The team had gone into administration last year in October, however sources have said that the team has managed to secure investments from Stephen Fitzpatrick, an entrepreneur and owner of an energy firm called Ovo. The money he has invested in not company sponsorship but his own, as he is very passionate towards Formula One.
Manor Marussia to race in F1 2015 season
Graeme Lowdon who has been a part of the team for a long time as it changed names from Virgin to Marussia and now Manor, will be the president and sporting director for the team. He said that the team has been through challenging times, has emerged through it and now just want to go racing again. He added that with a new leader and new investments the team looks more formidable and a very rewarding moment for those involved with the team.
Justin King who has joined the team as an interim chairman, said that he was confident that Manor had the right people and that hard work would be competitive at the highest level. King is not involved in the financial aspect of the team but will take a leading role in the operations of the team.
They have announced that Will Stevens will be one of their drivers and that the second driver would be soon announced. The team’s new car is a modified and tweaked version of the 2014 model. The team still has a lotof work left before they can take part in the Australian Grand Prix starting with getting their cars to pass the mandatory F1’s crash test procedures.
Patrick said that the team was in shambles when he visited them five months back however they have recovered well and are ready to race again. He added that he wanted to explore the opportunity to revive the team and had talks with Graeme. They had straight forward and frank talks which involved all the aspects of the team’s survival including the fact that they needed to re-establish credibility with the engine suppliers, Ferrari.
Manor Motorsport is a British racing team that was formed in 1990 by John Booth and they mainly raced in Formula Renault. Kimi Raikkonen and Lewis Hamilton are some of the team’s past drivers. They applied for Formula One license in 2009 and started racing in 2010 season as Virgin Racing due to sponsorship commitments with Virgin Group. The name changed when Marrusia Motors bought the controlling right for the team. In 2014 the team along with Caterham went into administration.
Their request to compete in the 2015 season with a 2014 chassis was rejected by the FIA and other teams however they were allowed to develop their car on a 2014 Ferrari chassis. So now they will have worked on meeting the 2015 safety standards and technical regulations based on the old chassis.
The team was in a complex situation with lot of legal and financial challenges plaguing the team with a debt of over 60 million pounds. However, they have managed to sort most of them out in the last five months and now are focused to get back to racing starting with the one in Melbourne.
Tags: 2015 Formula One, F1, FIA, Manor Marussia, Motorsports, Ovo, Stephen Fitzpatrick
