Marussia F1

Despite Jolyon Palmer's best efforts in the second half of the season, the contest for Formula One's unofficial Rookie of the Year award is sure to be a one-horse race in 2016.

After winning the DTM touring car championship last year, Pascal Wehrlein has almost seamlessly readjusted to single-seater racing this season, establishing himself as the sport's standout newcomer.

In a year far more experienced drivers and serial world champions have struggled to master the revised race-start procedure, his launches from the rear of the grid have already become a defining characteristic.

His qualifying performances have been a little inconsistent, but on the occasions he has delivered on Saturdays—think Bahrain and Austria in particular—he has often soared over a single lap.

And in results terms, his 10th-place finish at the Red Bull Ring in July saw him become only the second driver in the Manor team's seven-year history to score a point, following in the footsteps of the late Jules Bianchi.

That logic-defying performance alone was enough to secure the Rookie of the Year prize, and when the racing finally finishes at next weekend's Abu Dhabi Grand Prix and awards season begins, he will be showered with congratulations for an outstanding start to what should be a long and successful F1 career.

The keyword, though, is "should," for as impressive as Wehrlein has been for much of 2016, his career is already losing a little momentum.

The progress he has made with Manor over the course of this season should have propelled Wehrlein into the inner core of the driver market, putting him in place for a promotion to either of Mercedes' more established customer teams for 2017.

Sure enough, Felipe Massa's retirement and Nico Hulkenberg's transfer to Renault did create vacancies at Williams and Force India, respectively.

But the Mercedes-backed youngster, whom we're led to believe is destined to succeed either Nico Rosberg or Lewis Hamilton in the coming years, was overlooked by both Mercedes-backed teams.

True, Williams' determination to "own" their driver choice—as deputy team principal Claire Williams told Motorsport.com's Jonathan Noble in May—meant a team of their heritage were reluctant to settle for the safe option and sign a driver gift-wrapped by their engine suppliers.

Yet Force India's decision to not only neglect Wehrlein but to take the other Mercedes protege—Manor team-mate Esteban Ocon who, for all his success in the junior categories and his extensive F1 experience in test and practice sessions, only made his grand prix debut in August—was damning.

After all, if Vijay Mallya, Bob Fernley and Co. didn't feel he was Force India material now, will they ever?

Wehrlein, of course, had come to be regarded as a future Force India driver at the beginning of 2015, when he represented the team in pre-season testing at Spain's Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya as well as an in-season test at the Red Bull Ring.

For comparison, Ocon made only a couple of appearances for Force India in last year's mid-season tests in Spain and Austria—splitting driving duties with Wehrlein for the latter—during which he completed a combined total of 170 laps.

Despite the Frenchman's comparatively little mileage, the team saw enough over the course of those two days of testing to confidently come to the conclusion that Ocon was a "more promising" driver with greater ultimate potential than Wehrlein, as reported by F1 journalist James Allen.

At least some of that, you suspect, is due to the lingering doubts concerning Wehrlein's attitude, which have followed him all the way from DTM to F1. 

As noted by Sky Sports' Ted Kravitz, the 22-year-old had a reputation for being arrogant in his former life as a tin-top racer, with Wehrlein foolishly revealing that flaw to the watching world—not to mention his potential employers—barely a week after Hulkenberg's departure was confirmed.

His spin into a gravel trap in final practice at the United States GP was followed by a televised team-radio conversation between the No. 94 car and the Manor pit wall, in which Wehrlein repeatedly ignored his race engineer's demands to switch off his overheating engine.

Indeed, we caught another glimpse of the darker side of Wehrlein at the Brazilian GP, where the German vowed to seek an explanation from Force India for their decision to sign his queue-jumping team-mate, per ESPN F1's Nate Saunders, before his misery was compounded just three days later.

Felipe Nasr's ninth-place finish at Interlagos, on a day Ocon and Wehrlein were unable to sneak their way into the points, means Sauber will almost certainly pip Manor to 10th place in the constructors' standings, which could severely affect the team's future plans.

As reported by Autosport (h/t Eurosport) ahead of the race, Wehrlein expressed his desire to stay with Manor for a second season in 2017, but can the backmarkers—now set to miss out on around $30 million in prize money, per Autoweek's Sam Hall—afford to keep him?

Per Saunders, Wehrlein admitted his chances of retaining his seat could depend on Manor—who emerged from administration less than two years ago—finishing ahead of Sauber and therefore eliminating the need to broaden their budget by recruiting so-called pay drivers.

With Nasr, reserve driver Rio Haryanto and Haas' Esteban Gutierrez—three well-backed drivers of varying skill levels—on the team's provisional shortlist for 2017, per Autosport (h/t Eurosport), will Manor revert to their old tricks by selling the seats to the highest bidders?

And if so, could Wehrlein, rather than replacing Hulkenberg, follow his fellow German's career path by being forced out of his team at the end of his rookie season and accepting a reserve role elsewhere with a view to returning to the grid in 2018?

If anything, the remaining weeks of silly season will reveal much about the relationship between Manor and Mercedes—who fought incredibly hard to find their favourite son a place on the 2016 grid—and, more significantly, whether the Silver Arrows still believe in Wehrlein after a full season in F1.

Or whether, like Force India, they have spotted something they don't quite like in a driver whose reputation—within the paddock at least—appears to have diminished as his debut campaign has progressed.

Whisper it for now, but Mercedes' little prince might not be the natural heir to the Hamilton-Rosberg throne after all.

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When Manor scored their first point in more than two years in July's Austrian Grand Prix, they were determined to ensure they wouldn't face another long wait for their next visit to Formula One's top 10.

Pascal Wehrlein's logic-defying performance at the Red Bull Ring—where he spent 47 laps on the soft-compound tyres to finish 10th despite running last within 30 laps of the chequered flag—had gifted the team their first point since the late Jules Bianchi's ninth-place finish at Monaco 2014.

And after joining his colleagues for the obligatory photocall in the pit lane, racing director Dave Ryan vowed Manor would hunt for more, rather than defending a one-nil lead over Sauber in the battle of the back of the grid.

"We've got to go to every race with a view to finishing as high up as we can, and at the end of the year the points score will tell its own tale," he told Motorsport.com's Jonathan Noble. 

"We are not going to sit back now: this is only the start for us. We've got to push, and push, and push at every race."

It was one thing for Ryan to make such a bold statement following a landmark result in the team's history, but quite another for the former McLaren man to act upon his words—after he'd already revealed genuine aspirations of finally transforming Manor into a "really solid midfield team," per Reuters' Alan Baldwin.

That was why Manor's choice of driver to replace Rio Haryanto—whose sponsorship funding only covered the first half of 2016, as his manager told Baldwin—for the rest of this season was one of the most important decisions the team have had to make since emerging from administration 18 months ago.

Or, put another way, it offered them an opportunity to prove the new-look Manor are very different to the old Manor.

With plenty of pay drivers who would give millions for a nine-race rush in an F1 car readily available, would they maintain their longstanding policy of selling the seat to the highest bidder and hoping for the best?

Would they treat their vacancy as a route onto the grid for the boss' son, Jordan King, whose father Justin helped rescue the team in early 2015 and who, despite a mediocre career in the GP2 feeder series, told Motorsport.com's Jamie Klein he was "perfectly ready" to graduate to F1?

Would they play it safe and welcome back old friends like Will Stevens or Alexander Rossi, who despite serving Manor well last year were both overlooked for permanent seats at the beginning of this season and had since found new homes in alternative categories?

Or, this time, would they prioritise performance over mere survival and pick a driver more than capable of matching and even exceeding their expectations?

With that in mind, Manor's signing of Esteban Ocon for the remaining nine grands prix is so much more than your usual mid-season driver change—it is a statement of intent, a reflection of the team's growth since they became Mercedes' customer team.

Having won the GP3 junior category in 2015, 12 months after beating Max Verstappen to the FIA European Formula Three title—albeit a Max Verstappen competing in his very first year of car racing—Ocon is among the most exciting youngsters to arrive in F1 in recent seasons.

And his arrival alongside fellow Mercedes protege Wehrlein could energise and inspire Manor in the same way his former F3 rival has returned the magic to Red Bull this year.

Indeed, as Ryan and Co. assessed their post-Haryanto options, a simple glance up the pit lane would have told them all they needed to know about how two evenly matched, high-calibre drivers can carry a team to a whole new performance level.

How Verstappen's presence alone generated more excitement around Red Bull; how his performances forced Daniel Ricciardo, already the standout driver of 2016, to drive at an even higher level; and how, together, they have become the team's driving force, allowing them to become the closest challengers to Mercedes.

Having convincingly outpaced the hapless Haryanto in the vast majority of their grands prix as team-mates, we already know Wehrlein, in the Ricciardo role, is good. But just how good?

Likewise, we already know Ocon, who has participated in several free-practice and test sessions this season, is more than a match for Max. But is he really the generation-defining talent so many suspect the boy wonder will become?

Should Mercedes' little princes establish a partnership remotely similar to that of the Red Bull team-mates, Manor's 10th-place finish in the constructors' standings will be assured—no matter how many upgrades a Sauber team under new ownership introduce in the second half of the season.

And who knows? With a number of high-speed, power-sensitive circuits still to come, might they yet give Renault, the team Ocon is widely expected to join on a full-time basis in 2017, a fright in the fight for ninth?

An F1 team is a reflection of their drivers and—after trading the weakest link of 2016 for someone Ryan has described as "clearly one of the rising stars" of the sport, per the team's official website—Manor now have one of the most exciting lineups on the grid.

A lineup that can "push and push and push" the team along to bigger and better things.

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By Christmas Eve, Pascal Wehrlein was not expecting any extra-special gifts to come his way.

The momentum that surrounded the 21-year-old following his victory in the DTM (German touring car) series, a championship he claimed with near-perfect timing following the Manor Formula One team's confirmed switch to Mercedes engines last October, was fading rapidly.

At a time Will Stevens told Motorsport.com's Pablo Elizalde he was "100 per cent confident" of retaining his place and Rio Haryanto had been granted £10 million by the Indonesian government to pursue the other seat, the Mercedes-affiliated driver had become an outsider in the struggle to join the Mercedes-affiliated team.

Having previously told ESPN F1's Laurence Edmondson that Manor stood to make more money from signing pay drivers, Toto Wolff, the head of Mercedes' motorsport activities, suggested the backmarkers—as is often the case with the smaller, independent teams—had suddenly shifted the financial goalposts.

And the €4 million he was willing to pay to guarantee his driver's place on the 2016 grid was now deemed "by far not enough," per Autosport's Gerhard Kuntschik.

Wehrlein's dream, it seemed, was to be put on hold, and rather than graduating to the so-called pinnacle of motorsport, the German would be left with no option but to defend his tin-top title this season.

Yet despite the negative feedback emerging from Manor over the festive period, Mercedes, to their credit, never admitted defeat.

For all the confidence in Stevens' camp, and for all the money in Indonesia—not to mention the positivity displayed by Alexander Rossi, who told Sky Sports' William Esler of his hopes of earning a full-time drive after participating in five races in 2015—Manor revealed no details about their driver lineup at the beginning of the year.

Until, just 12 days prior to the start of pre-season testing, the team confirmed that Wehrlein had beaten all three and would be racing for them in 2016 after all.

The clincher? Not just Wehrlein's "talent and hunger," as team owner Stephen Fitzpatrick told Manor's official Facebook page, but the revised terms offered by Mercedes, which included a financial package of up to €6 million and access to the two-time world champions' "50 per cent windtunnel facility," according to Autosport's Ian Parkes. 

Mercedes' unflinching determination to secure Wehrlein's place at Manor, where he will race alongside Haryanto, and ensure the German's career maintains a linear trajectory was indicative of the belief the Silver Arrows have in his potential.

And it also proved Mercedes have the best young-driver program in F1—simply by not having a young-driver program, per se.

While their rival teams and manufacturers—Red Bull, Ferrari, McLaren and Renault—are renowned for signing herds of drivers to their dedicated academies, Mercedes tend to work on a case-by-case basis.

If Wolff and Co. happen to come across a promising young driver they admire, they are more than happy to support their careers, provide them with opportunities and do everything in their power to help them reach their goals (Wehrlein, for instance, was appointed Mercedes' reserve driver just a week after testing an F1 car for the first time in 2014).

A more concentrated pool of youngsters means they are unable to match the figures of, say, the Red Bull Junior Team, which has produced 10 grand prix debutants (including a certain four-time world champion) and discarded many more talented drivers since Dietrich Mateschitz rebranded the Jaguar team in 2005.

But the chosen ones at Mercedes are assured of the full and undivided support of a company with no apparent ego and a reluctance to make reckless decisions.

There are no comic-book villains in the style of Dr. Helmut Marko, who never misses an opportunity to threaten even the most talented and successful Red Bull graduates. No horror stories of drivers being mishandled and mismanaged, as we witnessed following Kevin Magnussen's departure from McLaren in late 2015.

And no petty political or personal feuds akin to the one that ended Raffaele Marciello's time at Ferrari, where team principal Maurizio Arrivabene "just didn't like" him, as the 21-year-old later told Italian publication Autosprint (h/t Motorsport.com's Valentin Khorounzhiy).

In nurturing their young drivers, Mercedes demonstrate levels of responsibility, loyalty and emotional intelligence rarely displayed by any of their rivals, and it was no surprise when the team announced plans for their latest apprentice just 24 hours following the confirmation of Wehrlein's move to Manor.

Having won the GP3 title in 2015, 12 months after beating Max Verstappen to the F3 championship, Esteban Ocon will compete in the DTM this season, filling the Wehrlein-sized hole in Mercedes' lineup.

Rather than progressing to the GP2 feeder series, where he would have raced under the unforgiving scrutiny of F1 folk, the 19-year-old will be protected to some extent by participating in a highly polished, professional and competitive series.

As well as his DTM commitments, Ocon will hold a reserve role at the Renault F1 operation, where he is likely to drive the RS16 car in practice sessions on grand prix weekends, as managing director Cyril Abiteboul told Motorsport.com's Noble.

The unusual agreement, which has effectively seen Ocon loaned to a rival manufacturer, only further illustrates that Mercedes' junior scheme is very much centred around the drivers—not the team—and a commitment to offering the Frenchman the best possible preparation prior to his eventual graduation to F1.

When he makes his F1 debut at next weekend's Australian Grand Prix, meanwhile, Wehrlein is likely to be rooted to the rear of the field as his fellow Mercedes stablemates, Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg, fight between themselves for victory.

The sight of a future Mercedes driver at the back of the grid, as the current Mercedes drivers begin what is expected to be another championship-winning season, will be symbolic of the Silver Arrows' influence on modern-day F1.

Mercedes aren't just dominating the present—they're setting the standard when it comes to developing the stars of tomorrow.

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In the end, Manor's choice for their second 2016 race seat wasn't all that surprising. After months of speculation, the team announced this week that Rio Haryanto will partner Pascal Wehrlein in what promises to be the team's most competitive car yet, thanks to their new Mercedes engines.

Haryanto was battling for the final Manor seat with Will Stevens, who drove all of last year for Manor, and Alexander Rossi, who was impressive in a five-race stint with the team at the end of last season. In the end, Haryanto's €15 million from the Indonesian Ministry of Youth and Sports carried the day.

So, who is Rio Haryanto, and how has he ended up in a Formula One race seat?

Haryanto, who just turned 23 on January 22, was born in the Indonesian city of Surakarta, about 500 kilometres east of the capital, Jakarta, on the island of Java.

Last October, he told the Indonesian magazine Tempo:

I first entered the racing world at the age of six, starting with Go Karts. I may have inherited it from my father, who loved to race Go Karts, motorcycles and cars. My older brothers was a Go Kart and a Formula Asia racer. I was the youngest and my family wanted me to enter the F1 race. I preferred watching F1 races on television to going to the mall. My idol was Michael Schumacher.

In 2008, he began racing single-seater cars and was a winner from the start. That first year, he finished third in the Formula Asia 2.0 series, and the next year he won the Formula BMW Pacific title (although Felipe Nasr, now driving for Sauber, did beat him twice when he made a cameo appearance for the Singapore rounds).

Haryanto began his association with Manor in 2010, making the move to Europe to race in GP3. He finished fifth in the championship, 11 points behind Rossi, scoring a victory in Turkey. With additional podium finishes at Silverstone and Monza, Autosport's Mark Glendenning wrote that he, "Surprised a lot of people—probably starting with his team-mates—by finishing as the highest-placed Manor driver, earning himself a Virgin F1 test."

The following season, despite scoring four more points, Haryanto fell to seventh in the drivers' standings. However, the young Indonesian did win two more races—both in wet conditions—holding off Valtteri Bottas (and others) at both the Nurburgring and the Hungaroring.

In 2012, he made the jump to GP2, finishing 14th in the championship but taking his first pole at Spa—again in the wet. However, Haryanto finished 131 points behind his more experienced team-mate, Max Chilton, who was fourth in the drivers' standings.

For the next two years, Haryanto did not show great progress, finishing 19th in 2013 and 15th in 2014, although he did score his first GP2 podiums: second at the Silverstone sprint race in 2013 and third the next year in Monaco.

Haryanto raced for Caterham in the 2014 GP2 season and was partnered with Rossi for the first five rounds (10 races). In the seven races they both finished, Haryanto beat his American team-mate four times.

Then, last year, racing for Campos, Haryanto finally had a breakout season, winning three races and finishing fourth in the drivers' championship.

McLaren protege Stoffel Vandoorne ran away with the title, and Rossi was second, 43.5 points ahead of Haryanto. Still, Haryanto won three races, and those results, along with the sponsorship money he brings to Manor, won him the battle for the last seat on the 2016 F1 grid.

F1 journalist Joe Saward predicted as much earlier this week on his blog, writing:

The sad truth is that money will probably decide the story and the Manor drive will go to Rio Haryanto, who has a lot of cash from Indonesia, government and private. Haryanto is not a bad driver, but he has not done much to convince that he is special. If he gets an F1 drive right now, it will clearly be because of money rather than talent.

While Rossi would have helped Manor make inroads in the American market, Haryanto will do the same in Asia. Last year, there were no Asian drivers on the grid, after Kamui Kobayashi raced with Caterham in 2014.

Haryanto will also become just the third driver from Southeast Asia to start an F1 grand prix, despite the fact that there are now two races in the region, in Malaysia and Singapore.

Thailand's Prince Bira raced in the early years of the world championship, achieving career-best fourth-place finishes at the 1950 Swiss Grand Prix and 1954 French Grand Prix. More recently, Malaysia's Alex Yoong bought his way into F1 after four winless seasons in Formula Three, Formula 3000 and Formula Nippon.

Although Haryanto's money also tipped the scales in his favour, he is a much more accomplished and talented driver than Yoong.

Now, with Manor poised for a significant performance jump in 2016, Haryanto has a chance to make a splash at the highest level of motorsport. And he will need to, if he wants an extended career in F1.

As we recently saw with both Pastor Maldonado and the United States Grand Prix, government support for F1 can be fickle. But if Haryanto can establish himself as a legitimate F1 driver, he may be able to diversify his sponsorship base.

For now, though, Haryanto just needs to focus on racing. In his spare time, he told Tempo, he is taking university courses in management, but when asked what he would do if he couldn't race in F1, he responded, "I don't know what I will do yet. Maybe sell books?"

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It has been a relatively quiet Formula One offseason, at least in terms of driver movement, with eight of the 10 teams from last year opting to retain their 2015 race lineups.

This week, though, Manor Racing announced that Mercedes reserve driver and current DTM champion Pascal Wehrlein will fill one of their 2016 race seats. That leaves just one more seat (also at Manor) up for grabs.

Manor are a small team with a small budget and, as such, cannot go out and sign any driver they want. In F1, particularly with smaller teams, the fastest drivers do not always get the race seats—often, the determining factor is the amount of sponsorship a driver can bring.

By signing Wehrlein, though, Manor have found the right balance between speed and money.

Wehrlein is obviously quick. He took the DTM (German touring car) title last year, turning 21 on the final day of the season. Other than F1 testing, his last single-seater experience came in 2012 and 2013, where he impressed in Formula Three, finishing second in the 2012 F3 Euro Series.

But perhaps the biggest testament to the young German's speed is the fact that back-to-back champions Mercedes have employed him as their reserve driver, the man who would step into that race-winning car should Lewis Hamilton or Nico Rosberg ever be unfit to drive.

So he is fast, but what about the money?

Mercedes executive director Toto Wolff has been working on a deal with Manor for several months. Last December, Wolff told Autosport's Ian Parkes he thought Wehrlein deserved to race in F1, but mentioned, "I understand there are commercial constraints Manor is facing, that there is this financial reality, so you can't force it."

The financial reality, according to F1 journalist Joe Saward, is that Manor wanted $15 million for each race seat.

Of course, Mercedes had another bargaining chip aside from straight cash. This year, Manor are switching to Mercedes power units, which must give the German company some leverage when dealing with owner Stephen Fitzpatrick.

Interestingly, Parkes reported for Autosport that the Wehrlein deal is worth €5 million to €6 million to Manor, making no mention of a discount on the engine supply, but saying that the team will have access to Mercedes' wind tunnel.

With the best engines in the field and whatever aerodynamic gains can be made using a top-of-the-line wind tunnel, Manor could be poised to make up any shortfall from what Wehrlein's seat was worth on the open market in prize money over the next few years.

Remember, teams need to finish in the top 10 of the constructors' championship every year to ensure they continue to receive prize money (the payout system is partly based on a three-year rolling average, though). With Haas joining the sport this year, Manor will need to score some points to ensure they continue getting those cheques from F1 CEO Bernie Ecclestone.

Sure, Fitzpatrick could have sold the seat to Rio Haryanto for €15 million—and he may yet do so with the second race seat—but the Wehrlein signing shows a refreshing willingness to make decisions based on what is best for the race team rather than current financial needs.

Manor would be wise to use the same principles in determining their second driver for 2016. Haryanto has the cash, but he has been relatively unimpressive in four seasons of GP2. Fellow Manor hopeful Alexander Rossi has beaten Haryanto in each of the three full seasons they have raced against each other (one in GP3, two in GP2).

Rossi also impressed during his five races for Manor last season, finishing ahead of team-mate Will Stevens in four of them.

"Things are looking positive and hopefully we get it done very soon," Rossi told Sky Sports recently.

Wehrlein and Rossi behind the wheel of a Mercedes-powered car would give Manor the best chance for success in 2016. Of course, success at Manor will be measured on a different scale than at most other teams. The Banbury-based team has just one points-scoring finish in six years. 

A top-10 finish in the constructors' standings this year, despite the arrival of Haas, would be a great result for Manor.

"It will be a tough challenge but I think we should be able to challenge for points along the way. It's going to be good fun," said Wehrlein, per a team press release.

If Manor are ever going to make the jump into the midfield, this is the year. They cannot afford to waste the opportunity by not taking the best drivers available. This is not the time to take the money and run.

With Wehrlein, Manor made the right choice, tying themselves even more closely to the dominant Mercedes team. Will their choice for the second race seat be as inspired as the first?

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With Manor's announcement last October that it will be using Mercedes engines for the 2016 Formula One season, the team finally has the potential to compete with—and perhaps beat—some of the more established teams on the grid.

"Potential" because the team still has some distinct disadvantages compared to others in the sport—most glaringly, its financial situation. Manor's estimated budget in 2015 was €20 million less than the next lowest-spending team, Sauber, according to Business Book GP's figures, as published in the Spanish newspaper El Mundo Deportivo (h/t Crash.net). Some teams spent more than five times as much as Manor's estimated €83 million.

However, the Mercedes engines have been the most powerful and most reliable on the grid since the new hybrid power unit regulations came into effect for 2014. Last season, Manor used year-old Ferrari engines, so the difference in performance will be huge—but no one knows exactly how much faster the team will be.

Fortunately, there is one relevant point of comparison: For 2015, Lotus switched from Renault power units to Mercedes and immediately vaulted up the grid. But before we analyse the gains Lotus made with its Merc engines, let's revisit how Manor arrived in their current situation.

It seems odd to still refer to Manor as newcomers, but it is the last remaining team from the three that joined the sport in 2010. In those six seasons, Manor (previously Marussia and, before that, Virgin) has not had much success.

Jules Bianchi scored the team's first (and so far only) points with a brilliant performance at the 2014 Monaco Grand Prix. Sadly, that achievement was overshadowed by the Frenchman's ultimately fatal crash at the Japanese Grand Prix later that year.

Manor missed the final three races of the 2014 season and entered administration before the new Haas team bought its factory in Banbury, per Crash.net. Team principal John Booth and sporting director Graeme Lowdon were determined to keep their team alive, though, and found a saviour in Ovo Energy founder Stephen Fitzpatrick, who invested £30 million of his own money to get the team on the grid in 2015, according to the Telegraph's Daniel Johnson.

Although the team made it to all the races in 2015 (neither car started in Australia), it did not come close to scoring any more points. By the end of the year, tensions between Fitzpatrick, Booth and Lowdon caused the latter two men to resign from their positions, per Autosport's Ian Parkes. They were quickly followed by technical consultant Bob Bell, according to F1 reporter Adam Cooper's personal blog.

And that is where the team stands: In the best financial position since its entry into F1 (thanks to both Fitzpatrick and the prize money earned with the points from Bianchi's Monaco finish) and also its best competitive position but with plenty of uncertainty, as well.

In addition to the high-profile departures, Manor has not announced who will drive for the team in 2016. There are several possible candidates, as outlined by my colleague, Neil James, but the team has offered few clues as to who will be chosen.

With Mercedes engines, the Manor seats are highly desirable. But exactly how much better will the team be this year?

In 2014, Lotus used Renault engines that were under-powered and unreliable, which, combined with the team's own financial struggles, left it eighth out of 11 teams in the constructors' championship. Romain Grosjean scored two eighth-place finishes and Pastor Maldonado was in the points just once, with a ninth-place finish in the U.S.

Last year, with Mercedes engines, Lotus vaulted from 10 to 78 points and finished sixth in the constructors' standings, highlighted by Grosjean's surprise podium in Belgium.

Likewise, the Lotus drivers experienced a significant improvement in their qualifying performances from 2014 to 2015:

Notwithstanding some unlikely apocalyptic scenario, Manor is not going to finish on the podium at any race this year. There are, after all, three better-funded Mercedes-powered teams on the grid, in addition to several other teams figured for a strong season, including Ferrari and Toro Rosso.

But the quantum leap taken by Lotus from 2014 to 2015 hints at what is possible for Manor.

Of course, Manor is starting from much further back than Lotus were last year, so even a comparable jump in performance will still leave the team close to the back of the field—but maybe, just maybe, not at the very back.

Writing for motorsport.com last October, Adam Cooper suggested, "With a new chassis coming from a design group led by former Williams and Jordan man John McQuilliam, it appeared that the team had the potential to make a huge step from the 2014-based package that it has run this year." That performance boost, along with the prize money, Cooper suggested, could allow Fitzpatrick and his business partner, Abdulla Boulsien, to sell the team for a profit.

"The difference in next year's car compared to this should be like night and day, offering Manor no excuses regarding its competitiveness for 2016," wrote Autosport's Ian Parkes after the Mercedes agreement was announced.

In the same article, Lowdon said of the Mercedes deal that, "It's a definite step forward because it's going to be a few seconds the aero guys don't have to find."

At the 2015 season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Will Steven's Q1 qualifying time was 5.323 seconds slower than the quickest time, set by Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton. Stevens—who was more than a second clear of his team-mate, Roberto Merhi—was also 2.459 seconds adrift of Sauber's Marcus Ericsson, who qualified directly ahead of him.

In the race, Stevens' fastest lap was 5.093 seconds slower than the fastest lap overall, set by Hamilton, and 2.101 seconds slower than McLaren's Jenson Button, who had the slowest non-Manor fastest lap, per the FIA's timing data.

So Lowdon's "few seconds" are clearly not going to put Manor anywhere near the front of the grid but could allow them to challenge some of the midfield teams. So, what would a successful year for Manor look like?

It would probably include the team making it into Q2 on several occasions, along with maybe three or four points-scoring finishes.

That may not seem like a lot with the best engine on the grid, but considering the team has just one top-10 finish in six years, anything more than that in 2016 would be cause for some major celebrations in the team's new factory in Banbury.

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