Manor F1 car appears in Australia

2015 F1 season

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The car Manor will use for the opening races of the 2015 F1 season has appeared for the first time in Melbourne.

The team, which competed as Marussia last year, is using an updated version of the MR03 chassis designed to meet the 2015 technical regulations.

Manor intends to introduce a new 2015 car later in the year.

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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80 comments on “Manor F1 car appears in Australia”

  1. Did they just repaint a gp2 car?

    In all seriousness I hope they pull through and use the new investment and the prize money to carry on and become the new Minardi, which sounds bad but I think you need a plucky perennial back marker team

    1. Honestly, I find this livery still far more interesting and good looking than the dull ones presented by McLaren and Mercedes and what Sauber have been racing in recent years or the messy Red Bull.

      Yes, it looks like Lewis ART GP2 car, but hey, that was a winning car!

      The livery does look like they didn’t put very much tought in it, but if you think about Sauber who presented theirs and then added a bit of yellow on the nose 2 weeks later to make it look less bad, I don’t think its a huge issue.

      1. “The livery does look like they didn’t put very much tought in it,” @BasCB
        They probably realised they were in fact going to get the car in the container on time and sent someone down to ColourMatch. Heck, paint can dry in transit.

        I love the look and hats off to the whole team for making it to the race. I agree with the other comments that it would be great to have another underdog to root for.

    2. Bravo! Well done guys! Hoping you (and Sauber and Lotus and FI) survive the season!!!

      1. GB (@bgp001ruled)
        12th March 2015, 19:37

        sauber is finished!!! thnk you, monisha!!!!

  2. Willem Cecchi (@)
    12th March 2015, 8:09

    Brawn GP 2.0. #LOL Great to see them on the grid. Can’t wait for the weekend!

    1. Just imagine the furore if they actually did pull a Brawn…
      Good news story of the year, i hope they last the season now :)

      1. @pukktpie They’d also lack development costs….

  3. ColdFly F1 (@)
    12th March 2015, 8:15

    Best looking car so far!
    But that is probably a more emotional view, as I’m just happy they are here.

    1. @coldfly

      What these guys have done to get here is just great, I honestly feel that this is not about collecting prize money, these guys just want to race F1,

      Another quick point, why dont we ask Manor to fit Guido into a seat for the C34, surely if they can crash test a 2015 tub and pass with little to zip resources, fitting a Dutchman into the Sauber could be done by smoko ? :)

      1. ColdFly F1 (@)
        12th March 2015, 12:35

        @greg-c, great idea – ask Manor to fit Guido into a seat for the C34

        PS – I’m in Melbourne and will move heaven and earth to find a Manor GP shirt to wear at the race.

        1. @coldfly Grab me a XXL please , Im sure those guys would be desperately happy to shift some merch :)

        2. @coldfly if you find how to get one, do please tell us all how!

      2. whyare you so sure? i actually think the opposite, i think the new investors are here to make a quick buck, and then leave the sport… look at it this way, they have the worst car in the grid with no testing, and they have no solid future plan to push them up the grid. they will be 5 seconds a lap off the pace and unlikely to improve, but will ride on some fan sentiment for a while, until they suddenly collaps again. save your money on a shirt of a team that has intention to stay long term in F1. from what i have read, the main investor has never even been to an f1 race….

        1. Nigelstash (@)
          12th March 2015, 17:56

          Manor have a long history of motorsport. They are a real team who manage to compete against the odds. Some investors might have different priorities, but the same can be said for the big teams too.

  4. Is this the first time a team will use a different chassis part way through the season in recent times? Im guessing the early 90s would have been the last time this was done?

    1. Ferrari did so in early 2000-s

      1. 2005, to be precise

    2. Torro rosso did that as well until they forbid two teams sharing one design in 2009 I think

    3. @juicedtin Toro Rosso, 2008.

      If I remember correctly: Red Bull, 2009 (the replacement named RB5B).

    4. A similar case must be Super Aguri’s, they used a 4 year old Arrows car for half a season in 2006 until they designed their own.

      1. Didn’t Virgin have to modify their chassis in 2010 because their fuel tank was too small?
        They’re just getting back to their roots this year.

    5. Mclaren did it in 2003 with a 2002 chassis for the whole season, and o close to winning the championship

  5. Loving the GP2 nosecone…

  6. That looks fairly close to the HRT… Oh dear, sincerely hope they don’t suffer the same fate. But I am very happy they are there.

  7. Incredible. Can’t believe they got there. Man, that must have been some hefty days, and I bet the people behind the scenes need a bit of nap. Well done, and we’re up to 20 cars again – yay!

    Honda is back, VDG ang MAG surprise drives, mystery accident conspiracy, and all in all lots of stirring up in this old sport. It’s healthy signs, and f1 is far far away from being dead.
    it’s shaping up to be a good season already B-)

    1. Now they only have to do it again, every week or two until December…

      1. True. We still don’t know if they are just there to collect last years prize money, but impressive they got there non the less.

    2. And Maldanoda added one more accident to his CV even before the green lights in Australia.

    3. Come 15th, when is Mercs are 1-2 & a whole second faster than the 2nd best, you might say different :p

      1. That is almost granted, but it looks like the chasing pack is a smidge closer to them, and the order among the teams has been shuffled up. In my view; all is set for a good one :)

        1. The chasing pack doesn’t always amuse viewers. If Lewis and Nico don’t have good wheel to wheel battles this season, this might go down as one of the most boring seasons since 2004

          1. Maybe we viewers should learn to look for amusement in different places by now. Overtakes, interesting strategies, shuffling orders(as @testacorsa said) are more fun than the end results.

            …or maybe just forcing myself to find positives with another year of Merc’s impending domination.

          2. @todfod It’s going to be down to whether FOM shows us the best battles, rather than glamourous ladies and buildings, and of course replays when the cars are still tigtly packed…..

          3. Doubtful. All last year, there were good battles up and down the grid. I predict another exasperating year for the world feed directors.

            While the Hamilton/Rosberg battles were entertaining, they tended to either be brief (Bahrain/Barcelona), or very long strategic battles (Monza / Austin). Battles like Alonso v. Vettel (Silverstone) were much more entertaining.

    4. all those points are pretty lame for a top racing series. i would be more excited by closer competition and f1 looking and sounding entertaining again.

  8. I like the livery, they have taken something that looks a bit like the old Mclaren, when Mclaren took Marussias for this year.

    1. @dutch-in-sweden Yes, I was going to say (and still will) that this is basically the livery many people wanted the McLaren to be this year.

  9. Looks pretty smart … but I think a little black pin-striping between the red and white would have set it off nicely!

    Good luck to the team regardless :)

  10. This is it. The car that will beat Mercedes this year.

    In all seriousness… good to have them on the grid!

  11. Who cares what colour or design it is -they are back, think they might now be my ‘second team’!!!

  12. I’m fully supporting them, I just can’t believe they made it. Against ALL odds, they are there to race. Just a fantastic effort from everyone involved.

  13. I love this team

  14. Willem Cecchi (@)
    12th March 2015, 10:18

    Looks like Ron Dennis has gotten off to a solid start as Head of Sponsorship at Manor F1.

    1. I see what you did there :-D

  15. McLaren has disappointed by clinging on to their boring livery. I was expecting a change but…….

  16. Glad we haven’t lost another team, but you have to feel that it is not a long way off.

    1. yep, bye bye sauber.

      1. Enstone/PDVSA and Force India as well.

        1. I’d almost laugh if FI go before Manor after trying to block their entry.

  17. ILuvSoundtracks (@)
    12th March 2015, 11:26

    Well, more white on the car replacing black but why not on the rear wings?

  18. Looks like Errea on the rear wing. Possibly a team wear sponsor. I guess Pirelli and Errea are the only sponsors on the car o.o

  19. Wow, pure racing car, except for… it’s a pile of obsolete machinery.

  20. 0 sponsors, wow … I hope they’ll last ’till the last race.

    1. Cannot be a complete surprise though. I’d imagine it would be tough to sign up sponsors when it was far from guaranteed that they would even make the gird. Hopefully now they can snag a few minor ones.

    2. @paeschli when was the last time we saw a car with absolutely zero sponsors? Ferrari ran in 2002 with no sponsors for a single race.

      1. Was there any on the earth dreams honda

      2. Brawn GP had almost none, I wasn’t following F1 much before 2008 so I don’t know.

    3. They haven’t started putting Will Stevens’ stickers on it yet.

  21. Do you think if we all chip 1$ each @keithcollantine we might get F1F on the car ?

  22. Manor! I love it. So happy they are on the grid. Will be rooting hard for them to score another point this year.

  23. I’m surprised by the lack of Ovo energy stickers on the car. I know Fitzpatrick wanted to keep the team as a separate entity to the company hence buying them with his personal finances, but still surprising to see no sponsorship agreement.
    Still with this being a good news story for the sport and the media coverage it’s getting I’m hopeful their cars will make it to Europe with fewer white spaces on them.

  24. Can’t imagine it reaching the 107% limit.

  25. With Caterham gone, this will likely be a very lonely season for the sole remaining whipping boys. I know in one way it is of course good that we have another team on the grid, but that’s only up to a point. It’s not unconditional. Beyond that point, when a team are _so_ slow and on their own, you begin to wonder whether the sport and its image would be better off having 9 competitive teams instead of 10 that includes a complete and utter donkey. I just hope for Manor’s sake and for our sake that they are not so slow to the point of looking like a GP2 car that turned up on the wrong day.

    1. It would definitely be better to have 9 teams than 1 extra which is 2 seconds slower than the nearest rival.

      Has no one else thought that this comeback could be a complete waste of time? I mean they haven’t turnt a wheel and they have a 2014 chassis basically and a new 2015 spec ferrari engine lumped in the back. An when a team like McLaren, with more money/resources and a better car, were on average running 20-30 laps a day at the first tests, how the heck are Manor gonna be able to do anything in 4 hours of practice sessions before Q1, essentially the same as the first morning of Jerez day one for McLaren. What did they do 7 laps and 11 seconds off the pace? I can’t see Manor qualifying for the first few races anyway. It would be sick if they did but seems a tough ordeal.

      1. Worse, reports said it’s the 2014 Ferrari lump in the back, afraid it’ll be way slow if they get it running at all.

  26. So the car is in blue and black.
    Hopefully, this “zombie” will not race at all.

  27. Manor might not run at AUS according to rumours. Problems with software apparently.

    1. Where’s a geek working through the night when you need one?

      1. Watching a Big Bang Theory marathon…

  28. Can someone explain to me what happened to the vote that the teams did awhile back for Manor to come back. It was voted no, because Force India were the first team to vote no. But now Manor are here going to race… Did that voting mean absolutely nothing? I just don’t get these politics sometimes.

    1. The vote was to race with a 2014 car in the beginning. They always had a valid 2015 entry.

      When it was said they couldn’t use the 2014 car, they upgraded it to meet 2015 regulations.

  29. Good job Manor GP Team! So happy to see you this year!

  30. Best F1 news I’ve seen in a while!

    Hope they get around the circuit in good fashion. They just may complete more laps than McLaren.

  31. Bravo Manor!!
    Now go beat McLaren-Honda, all you have to do is finish.

    1. With all the 2014 equipment they’re using it should be reliable enough to finish,
      could beat McLaren and maybe some others. Be great to see them pick up points!

  32. I’m really rooting for these guys and so pleased to see them there. There seems to be a lot of love for Manor GP.

  33. Not many stickers on it just yet.

  34. Front wing looks a lot like the new Indycar aero kit, by Honda!
    That would have saved them a lot of time and money on development LOL.
    Is really good to see them there, always pulling for the underdog.

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