Mercedes executive director Toto Wolff as reiterated the German manufacturer have no intentions to buy into Manor Racing creating a junior team similar to Toro Rosso and Red Bull.
While there doesn’t seem to be any interest in offering financial support to Manor in the near future, Mercedes may look to strengthen their relationship with the team in the coming seasons.
Manor is currently in the midst of their most competitive season to date, largely down to the impressive engine deal they secured from Mercedes for this season along with the technical partnership they also have with Williams.
Making the most of the teams new found competitiveness, Mercedes has managed to place both their development drivers Pascal Wehrlein and Esteban Ocon into the team to gain them some much needed Formula One experience.
Speaking about their junior drivers, Toto Wolff told Autosport.com.
“Max [Verstappen] is a good example. He fell through because we didn’t have a system in place.
“The only thing we were able to offer him was a seat in GP2, but that was clearly not as good as a Toro Rosso seat.
“We obviously made an agreement with Manor for Pascal, and that works well, and then the opportunity [for Ocon] came up because [Rio] Haryanto was out.
“We had a couple of weeks of negotiations, found a reasonable deal, and there are areas where we support Manor. It seems the relationship is having different angles now.
“We’re not a shareholder, we don’t plan to be, and we don’t want to own the team or subsidise it.
“The main objective is to win championships with Mercedes, but there could be a co-operation with Manor that goes beyond what we do today.
“So the plans of having a junior team, which we would co-own, haven’t changed. We will not co-own another Formula 1 team.”
Mercedes offered Manor a discount on their power units to secure both Wehrlein and Ocon race seats, something that could continue beyond the 2016 season if both teams can come to a mutually beneficial agreement.
