Manor Racing owner Stephen Fitzpatrick has revealed the Banbury-based team started work on their 2017 car all the way back in January.
This level of preparation marks a significant step forward for the team, after several years of struggling and uncertainty over their long-term future. In 2015, the team competed with a modified version of their 2014 car for the entire season, regularly finding themselves almost five seconds off the pace.
However, thanks to a switch to Mercedes power units and a close technical partnership with Williams, this season has seen an upturn in fortunes for Manor. At the Austrian Grand Prix, Pascal Wehrlein qualified 12th securing the team’s highest ever qualifying position. In the race, he would go on to score the team’s first point under the Manor name and its best result to date by finishing 10th.
Fitzpatrick is confident the team can use this season’s success and next years technical regulation overhaul as a springboard for bigger gains and further points in 2017.
“We set out with a five-year plan last year and it was to make up one place a year,” Fitzpatrick told Autosport. “So far we are on target – we have one team behind us.
“The first year of the plan was to assemble a team of people with a lot of experience that can help us efficiently develop the car and get the best out of it on track.
“Next year gives us a big opportunity to accelerate the one-place-a-year plan, because with the big changes in the regulations – we’ve been working on the 2017 car going back to January – we’ve invested a lot of the time of the senior guys that have joined into that project.
“When we started out this year, we were racing almost a completely new car, whereas everybody else is in their third year of an evolution.
“Next year it’s a bit of a restart for everyone so it gives us a great chance to leapfrog a couple of places if we apply ourselves properly.”
Fitzpatrick’s goal is to make Manor Racing the top independent team in Formula One. He sights Force India’s rise in performance year after year for inspiration and as an example of what can be achieved.
“They’ve done a fantastic job,” he said. “It’s a great model. They have great performance relative to their budget.
“They keep making a step every year – it shows that it can be done, and that’s what we have to aspire to.”
