The Manor F1 Team continued their positive start to the season, and continued their 100% finishing record of races in the 2015 that they have started. Both Will Stevens and Roberto Merhi saw the chequered flag in Bahrain, with the Briton sixteenth and the Spaniard seventeenth.
Stevens was happy with his evening’s work despite being forced to start a row behind where he was scheduled to by an errant Pastor Maldonado starting out of position ahead of him. The Briton battled hard to regain his position ahead of team-mate Merhi, and felt Manor could be proud of what they have achieved in the first few races of 2015.
“Overall I’m pretty pleased with my race,” reflected Stevens. “It didn’t get off to the best start because of Maldonado being out of grid position, so that meant Roberto got away ahead of me.
“We had a good duel for me to get that back but by the time I was able to get by 8 laps in, I’d lost a lot of time. The positive thing is that when I was back with the pack, the pace is good and it’s pretty impressive that we’re bringing both cars home when you can see from other teams that it’s no mean feat.
“Massive congratulations to the team for an incredible job in this first part of the season. Obviously the job gets harder still as we head to Europe, but everyone is very motivated by our achievements so far.”
Team-mate Merhi also saw the chequered flag for the third time in three starts in 2015, but was disappointed to lose sight of Stevens after the great battle between the two Manor drivers in the opening few laps.
“It was good to bring both cars home again and to see that as a team we continue to make good progress,” said Merhi. “I was a little disappointed with my race as it started out well with a good battle with my team-mate Will.
“After pushing so hard in the early part of the opening stint, when he did get by I had used the tyre, so I started to lose time to him and I wasn’t able to make that back.
“Overall, we have learned such a lot from the first phase of the season and now that we have some time to reflect on that, I think we will be even better equipped for the start of the European races.
“My thanks and congratulations to the team for all that we have achieved together so far.”
