Pascal Wehrlein has revealed that he was sad to learn of the collapse of his former team Manor Racing just before the 2017 season began, having completed an impressive campaign last year that saw the German clinch a point for tenth place at the Austrian Grand Prix.
With this point, Manor found itself ahead of Wehrlein's current team Sauber all season until the Brazilian Grand Prix, when Felipe Nasr collected two points for ninth - allowing the Swiss squad to move ahead of its British rival and take a lucrative P10 in the Constructors' Championship. Without the resulting prize money, Manor buckled under financial strain and eventually folded completely at the end of January.
Of Manor, who were known for their giant-killing performances when pitted against bigger and wealthier teams, Wehrlein said: "I was really disappointed about the Manor when it came out. The job we did last year was really good and really impressive. We started with 120 people in the team and went to close to 200, but if you compare to Sauber - who we were fighting with - they have many hundreds. We had some really good people working there and it is a shame for all the guys that lost their jobs."
Wehrlein missed the first two races of this season due to injury, but made his Sauber debut in Bahrain, where he impressed once again by qualifying 13th - giving Sauber their best grid position in two years - and finishing 11th in the race, only narrowly missing out on his second point.
Mason Hawker
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Posts: 8,527
Its a pity, but it was bound to happen.