Manor Racing’s racing director Dave Ryan admitted that Pascal Wehrlein finishing ahead of the Sauber of Marcus Ericsson in the Singapore Grand Prix was an amazing result, especially with how the team have struggled all weekend long at the Marina Bay Street Circuit.
Ryan heaped praise on his driver and the strategy calls to get the German ahead of the Swede, with Wehrlein taking sixteenth at the chequered flag, while team-mate Esteban Ocon was eighteenth.
“It’s pretty obvious to everyone that we’ve struggled with pace this weekend and if we were going to get anything out of this race, it was going to come down to a brave strategy combined with great tyre management,” said Ryan. “That’s exactly how it turned out.
“Pascal drove another superb race today. He did exactly what was asked of him and I can’t stress strongly enough how impressive his performance was to finish ahead of Ericsson, in what has clearly been the quicker car all weekend.”
Ryan revealed that Ocon felt he was ahead of Felipe Nasr before the safety car boards came out, but with the stewards deeming the Frenchman had passed the German afterwards, a penalty was forthcoming, and the pit stop that involved the five second time penalty was a disaster for the team as his race unravelled.
“With Esteban, it was another story,” said Ryan. “First, there was the safety car incident with the resulting penalty; we need to look at that to understand exactly what happened, as Esteban was certain he was ahead of Nasr moments before the SC boards were out.
“But that’s irrelevant; the stewards thought otherwise hence the 5 second penalty. This had to be served at our next stop, which, quite frankly, was an unmitigated disaster.
“Thereafter it was a case of getting what we could out of the race, but once again it’s been a particularly frustrating weekend for Esteban. Hopefully it will all be different in Malaysia in two weeks’ time.”
