The Manor F1 Team were forced to skip both Friday free practice sessions in Australia as they encountered numerous issues that saw it impossible for them to get on track.
Both Will Stevens and Roberto Merhi had been hoping to debut the adapted 2014 Marussia on day one at Albert Park, but software issues were the main cause of the team’s absence from track proceedings.
The hard drives the team had brought to Australia had been wiped after being included in the auction that was subsequently cancelled when the team were saved at the eleventh hour, and they need to be set-up once more to operate individual parts of the car and be able to talk to each other.
Manor CEO Graeme Lowdon revealed he was unsure just when it would be possible for either car to venture out on track for the first time, but insisted they would be working as hard as they could to make it possible.
“I honestly don’t know [when we will get on track],” revealed Lowdon. “But what I can guarantee you is that, in terms of commitment and rate of problem-solving, we will be absolutely flat out.
“It’s not simply a software issue, there are a lot of issues, none of which are a big surprise when you consider the amount of work that has been required to get the team here in a very short space of time.
“The problems that we are dealing with at present are not unusual for the task that we are doing, which is effectively setting up both trackside and on-track infrastructure for both of these cars to run.
“We just have to deal with the problems one at a time. I think as we steadily get through them we will be able to put a little more accuracy on any kind of prediction.
“At the moment, it’s very difficult to predict because they are binary problems, things either work or they don’t work.”
