Manor Marussia on track to recovery

For a team that was close to being put out of business, Manor Marussia’s participation in the 2015 Formula One World Championship should be something to celebrate.

They are the last team standing of the trio of new teams that entered Formula One in 2010.

They have watched as the HRT and Caterham teams have struggled financially and eventually closed and left the sport.

Manor Marussia very nearly did the same, missing out on the final three races of the 2014 Formula One season and slipping into administration.

The team however were saved and despite missing out on the entire winter testing programme, they made it to Australia for the opening race of the season.

Unfortunately due to software problems they were unable to make it out on track, but the fact that their cars were in the paddock was a mini victory in itself.

In Malaysia, the team took another step forward with both Will Stevens and Roberto Merhi enjoying track time during the free practice sessions.

The team opted to not run both cars at the same time during Friday and Saturday’s sessions in a bid minimise the risk of making operational mistakes.

But all this has done is add fuel to the fire that the team were unable to run both cars simultaneously, with the team coming in for some quite unfair criticism from some quarters.

On Saturday Will Stevens car developed a ‘complex fuel system problem’ which prevented the British driver from taking part in qualifying and he also missed out on the race itself.

Merhi meanwhile went on to complete the race.

‘I can guarantee you if that car could have moved, it would have raced, There is absolutely no question about it. And it would have qualified.’ Manor sporting director Graeme Lowdon told Autosport.

‘The systems and the people were perfectly happy with the results of everything in [practice] one, two and three from that point of view, and if you look at the run plans we weren’t going round and round and round in one, two and three because we had very specific tasks in ticking things off.

‘Quali we had very clear run planning for both cars, and we would have definitely raced with two cars.’