Dave Ryan feels it will be difficult for Manor to keep 10th place in the Constructors Championship after Sauber received a financial boost.
Manor’s Racing Director sees that 10th will be under threat with Sauber looking a lot stronger in the second half of the season. Sauber received investment from Longbow Finance which will allow them to develop the car and challenge for points.
Ryan spoke to Autosport about the challenge from Sauber, “First of all, what’s happened to Sauber is fantastic for Formula 1,”
“They’ve been around a long time, and had worked hard to get to where they were. Obviously, they’ve fallen back a bit at the moment. In overall terms for Formula 1, it’s good news. For us, it’s just made another team potentially competitive, and made our job harder. We’ve got a point and we have to try and keep that point over and above them for the rest of the year.”
Ryan says that there are still small developments for the Manor and feels that it will not affect the 2017 car.
“We think we’ve got the balance right, 2017 is incredibly important, and time lost on developing the 2017 concept now would really hurt for next year. There would be a time difference on the clock if you don’t put effort into that car.
“But we’ve got small developments – which have been in the wind tunnel and are in the system now – coming through over the next two to three races, so we do have little upgrades, and hopefully good upgrades.”
Sauber Team Principal Monisha Kaltenborn says that finishing outside the top 10 is unacceptable.“We have one or two things we want to bring in this year because we clearly don’t want to finish where we are at the moment,”
“So we will continue with what’s in the pipeline there, but we are also focusing on next year because of the big rule change coming up. It’s tough, but we’ve been through many difficulties in the last years. We always manage somehow.”
