Manor sporting director Graeme Lowdon says it is time for the team to improve after getting up and running during the opening four races.
Having exited administration in February, Manor wasn’t ready to run at all during the Australian Grand Prix weekend but the team completed its first laps of the year at the second race of the season in Malaysia. While only Roberto Merhi qualified and raced at Sepang, both cars completed the next two races in China and Bahrain as the team started to work more smoothly.
Speaking exclusively to F1i Lowdon says the team knew it would struggle in the opening four rounds.
“The first four flyaways were always going to be difficult,” Lowdon said. “I think people don’t realise that none of these cars and none of this equipment actually goes back to the UK between them.”
And asked what Manor has to do next following the achievement of completing the last two races with both cars, Lowdon replied: “Go faster!
“There’s a huge amount of effort gone in up until now. Personally I did understand why people were sceptical ahead of Australia because it was probably a surprise for some people that the team was back. But now we’re getting the race finishes and getting the team gelled really well together it’s the job of any team to go faster. So that’s our next task!
“Yes it’s difficult, but it’s nowhere near as difficult as saving the team from the direction it was heading in. Will it take some time? Yes it will, but we’re racers so we’ll always want to be going faster, quicker. We just have to make sure that we’re constantly improving and then trying to ensure that our rate of improvement speeds up because quite clearly we need to catch up. But there are plans in place and that’s really what we’ve got to do next.”
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