The Manor Marussia F1 team is finally making inroads to ensure it not only survives in Formula One, but eventually thrives.
After signing former Mercedes F1 Technical Director Bob Bell, the team announced yesterday that they have signed 2013 GP2 champion Fabio Leimer as the team’s official reserve driver.
We’re delighted to welcome Fabio to our team. We always keep a close eye on drivers competing in the feeder series and their potential for making the step up to Formula 1. Fabio has been on that radar for a number of years, so we’re pleased to give him the opportunity to progress as he is a very talented driver and certainly deserving of this opportunity. Fabio will be joining us at selected races for the rest of the season, contributing to engineering meetings and on hand to substitute for either race driver should they be unable to compete at any stage. Familiarity with the car is therefore important, so we plan to run Fabio in a number of opening free practice sessions this season, allowing us to further evaluate his potential.
– John Booth, Team Principal
Today the team announced a sponsorship deal with the popular travel accommodations site Airbnb. Airbnb’s unique logo will appear on the Manor cars starting at this weekend’s Canadian Grand Prix and be with the team for the remainder of the 2015 season.
With the likes of Bell, Leimer and Airbnb coming on board it looks as if F1’s lovable minnows will continue swimming upstream and be a fixture in F1 for at least the near term future.
Image: Manor Grand Prix Racing Ltd
