In all violence of the Barcelona test, there is some sad, final news from Manor Racing.
On February 13th we were informed that the deal with Capital GF was called off. However, the whisper of a deal was kept alive, and we even found reports that (ex) employees of Manor were directly contacting Capital GF to offering their services to get a car on the Melbourne grid. (Imagine the hours of sleep deprivation these guys would have to pull off: true race fanatics!)
End of last season there were rumors of a deal put together by Tavo Helmund. He was quoted to have put down a bid of 20M USD. Brazil’s race saw the Saubers pass Manor in the team ranking and this caused a hole in the prospective buyers’ budget, and no deal was closed.
Reports of a possible Asian buyer persisted, and talks seemed to be ongoing. Until the 13th, when Tavo Helmund broke the until then closed ranks by explaining that he and the Asian buyers were actually the same. Helmund commented that he wanted to keep Manor alive, expecting that in a few years’ time regulations would change and it would become harder to build a team from scratch. Therefore, he expected the outfit to become more valuable over time. However things became to risky and again no deal was reached.
Even after Helmund broke his story, there was still some hope, as sources still claimed talks were ongoing. On top, administrators still hadn’t shown any signs of selling off team assets and suppliers were kept informed about the situation, so if they are required to supply parts for a car, they could react to last minute calls.
Yesterday we were told that Manor owner Stephen Fitzpatrick has officially informed FIA of Manor’s withdrawal. This destroys the final bit of Manor fan hope as any interested party had to be interested not only in the design of the car, but also the Manor license and the prize money that goes with it. Any entity interested party can now only buy the design and start the rest from scratch. From that position getting anything on a circuit in the current season would be unprecedented.
Indeed after the last few days of testing in Spain, McLaren are probably eyeing up Manor’s Mercedes PU allocation with envious eyes. With the trouble the McLaren team have had with their Honda PU, imagine how buoyed the racers of Manor GP would’ve been to see their new machine ahead of the works Honda outfit had their buyout miraculously come through in time. Alas it wasn’t to be.
Manor F1 Racing is dead. F1 is poorer because of it.
Did Ronzo steal your girlfriend? You sure can make some stupid speculations regarding McLaren.
Sorry disagree… F1 is poorer for the loss of Team Lotus, Tyrrell, Arrows, Ligier… the list goes on.
Manor? I couldn’t give a f***
Manor tried. Not successful, but they tried. That should be commendable. I agree that other names have more F1 history, earned more points, and even won races. But they hung on for 7 seasons. No small feat. Underdogs will always find me in in their corner.
I want to see continuous renewal, that is why I would like a feeder series where the best promotes, and F1’s worst drops off. Any team that tries, deserves praise.
Lotus: yes, that was a biggie, but their legacy was destroyed over the name battle, and naming cars Lotus while there was no connection at all with Lotus cars.
Tyrrell: Ken wasn’t getting any younger, and sold the team. Good/bad: don’t know, but I have to say that IMHO part of Williams’ allure vaporized when Claire took over from Frank.
Ligier: yes, Prost deserves a royal shafting for that one.
Arrows: mixed feelings.. maybe because of the Walkinshaw connection that fornicated it all up..?
I’m not entirely sure why this usual affection for Manor. After all, they have the blood of two F1 drivers on their hands, in eerily similar circumstances, yet we still don’t really know what happened in both instances…
And exactly how was Manor responsible for Bianchi’s accident and subsequent death ?
steamingpot – manor are (were) racers. they came to every racing weekend and they raced. you very well may not care, but they did, and i do. that’s one less underdog, one less team, two less personalities on the track, and i’ll be god damned if we didn’t lose the finest looking livery of last season. f*** reinstated, and thejudge13 has reached equilibrium again.
Graham London and John Booth are both racers. I have no doubt that every employee is a racer also and with relevant F1 experience they’ll be absorbed into other teams.
Renault is currently expanding their team after the hiatus over the uncertain years also, so I doubt they will be unemployed for long.
My gripe is Stephen Fitzpatrick who I honestly don’t think has a racing bone in his body
Sad for the majority – good that he lost a substantial amount of money
I agree. Manor remind me of Osella.
I feel sorry for the Manor employees that lost their jobs. As for the team – they simply couldn’t cut it and they failed. The out pouring of grief for the team failing was largely due to what happened to Bianchi.
But the failure of Manor does bring up an issue of the FIA / FOM battle – where the FIA increased the number of licenses for teams that could participate in F1 believing more would be good for the sport. And FOM (Ecclestone) who believed that for himself and CVC, less was better. If you really want to point a finger at who caused Manor to fail – it would point straight at Ecclestone. And things won’t change under the Liberty Media clowns.
I agree, F1 is poorer for it. Regardless of whether you’re a Manor fan or not, it is a shame to see a team of people, so clearly enthusiastic about racing, having to give up. I must say, they were also a good team for allowing young drivers to mature into bigger positions, although this may not have been their aim. They were always very humble and willing to spend time chatting with the fans as well.
It is a real shame to hear this.
I made this comment on another news item, but maybe it is better said here.
“Maybe Honda should have bought the Manor team, the cost would have been peanuts to them, at least it would have given them more chances to test their engines and gain data, so that they could become more reliable.”
Interesting thought. If only Dennis would have been pushed aside earlier… Then again, without Dennis Honda might have never returned to F1.
It was Whitnash who negotiated Honda’a return.
Manor was supposed to be faster last year with Mercedes engine – were they?
In a straight line