Manor F1 Team have confirmed that Pascal Wehrlein will drive for them in this years championship, but who is Formula One’s latest addition?
The 21-year-old was born in Sigmaringen, Germany, and began his racing career back in 2005, winning the DMV Bundesmeisterschaft Junior Kart Championship in 2007. The following year he went on to finish in sixth place at the German Junior Kart Championship, one place ahead of Carlos Sainz Jr.
After finishing fifth in the KF2 Kart Masters category in 2009 the German graduated to the ADAC Formel Masters, which had replaced the German Formula BMW series. In his first season he achieved four podiums including a race win, and went on to finish sixth overall in the driver standings.
His second season in the Formel Masters series brought even more success. He won the championship with 13 podium finishes that included eight wins from 24 races.
He graduated to the Formula Three Euroseries in 2012 and went on to finish second in the championship, with ten podiums and a race win at the Nurburgring.
At the end of the year he competed in the prestigious Macau Grand Prix, which is a non-championship Formula Three race, and finished fourth ahead of Sauber driver Felipe Nasr.
After a strong start to the 2013 European Formula Three Championship Wehrlein moved over to DTM, where he finished his debut season in last place. He was then promoted to Mercedes’ senior DTM team, and became the youngest ever race winner of the series when he finished first at the EuroSpeedway Lausitz.
Shortly after his win, Mercedes F1 Team named him as their reserve driver, he took part in preseason testing at the Circuit de Catalunya for both Mercedes and Force India. Alongside his F1 testing duties Wehrlein continued to race in the DTM championship where he became the youngest ever champion, winning twice and finished outside the points on just three occasions.
It has been speculated that Wehrlein would land himself a seat with Manor F1 ever since Mercedes agreed a deal to provide their engines back in October 2015.
Now he’s been confirmed as Manor’s driver and will head into the 2016 championship with quite a big reputation. Who knows it might not be long before we see him promoted to the Mercedes F1 Team.
