Loyalty of staff key as Manor rise from the ashes

After a winter he describes as the toughest in his time in F1 – starting with Jules Bianchi’s near-fatal crash in Japan, through going bust and thinking his time in the sport was done – Booth’s team fly to Australia tonight as a reinstated member of the world’s most expensive sport.

That Manor have been reborn owes much to the financial support of new principal investor Stephen Fitzpatrick and Justin King.

But Booth knows it could not have been achieved without the hard work and dedication of a team of designers, manufacturers and mechanics who never lost faith. At the team’s former base in the old pit village of Dinnington in Rotherham, they have worked around the clock to design and build a new car that meets 2015 FIA regulations.

“It’s been a long, hard winter. There’s been quite a bit of panic for the last five months,” conceded Booth, who, at 60, would have been forgiven for thinking when the administrator knocked on his door that it was time to give up the fight.

“I think it’s been our most difficult time. The whole last few months really, since Jules’s crash in Japan. Going into administration didn’t seem to matter as much because of his injuries.

“But, as the winter wore on, I got the desire to get going again and the guys have done an amazing job.

“The car we have produced fully complies with the 2015 regulations.

“We had the exemption in place to run the 2014 car, but that was vetoed.

“We had to come up with a new design and a very small design team has done an incredible job.

“The loyalty in the team during such a difficult period has been a privilege to witness.”

Booth’s priority over the winter was not so much about preserving his own F1 dream, but that of the near-200 people the team employed.

With the uncertainty surrounding their future, some of those have had to move on to other teams, leaving a small army of workers at the team’s unit in Dinnington and their innovation centre at Silverstone.

If making the grid was a tough enough task, attempting to keep pace with the rest of the established teams is going to be another challenge in itself. For five years, they toiled at the back of the pack, repeatedly exiting in the first qualifying session until they finally made a breakthrough by finishing ninth – through Bianchi – at last year’s Monaco Grand Prix.

Repeating that in 2015 – despite the £26m in prize money they have now unlocked by making the grid – is unlikely.

“Because of the position we were in, we are going to go with a very young team,” said Booth, whose driver line-up comprises British rookie Will Stevens and another yet-to-be-named novice.

“We are not starting from scratch, we have retained a core of the race team and a core of the design team.

“Hopefully, we will be able to attract those people back once we get back out there and prove we belong again. By 2016, 2017 we hope to be making progress again.”

Although the collapse of Marussia’s interest was unwelcome, it has resulted in a return to their Yorkshire roots for Booth and his team.

Financed by the Russian motor sports company, they had decamped to Banbury in 
Oxfordshire in December, 2011, to be closer to the Formula 1 heartland.

But in all that time, Booth says, they never lost their Yorkshire heritage.

The new car, for instance, will carry a small reminder of Manor’s home.

“We’ve still got the white rose painted on the car, it never left,” said Booth, who launched Manor into the world of motor sport from his own double-garage in Rotherham a quarter of a century ago.

“It was quite nice to see the name of Manor on the international registration licence.

“It’s great to be back and it’s almost like nothing has changed.”