John Booth has admitted that the two points won by Jules Bianchi in Monaco helped save the team.

As the south Yorkshire outfit prepares for the second race of the season, having failed to turn a wheel in Melbourne, Booth has admitted that Bianchi's ninth place finish in the Principality, which was to earn the points needed to lift the team to ninth in the 2014 Constructors' Championship, are what subsequently made the outfit viable to potential investors.

"Without him, without the two points he scored in Monaco, we would not be here," Booth told Auto Hebdo. "In the end, that is what convinced the new investors of the potential of the team."

Sadly, just four months later the French youngster was badly injured in a horrific accident during the Japanese Grand Prix, suffering a serious head injury. Now back in hospital in France he remains unconscious, the most recent update coming from his family in December.

"Being here is our way of saying to Jules that the race is not over until the chequered flag has fallen," said Booth. "We emerged from the worst ordeal Manor has ever known, and I have no doubt that Jules will succeed too.

"What we were able to rebuild during the winter shows that faith can move mountains. There is always hope as long as we believe in it."

Meanwhile, talking to BBC Look North, Graeme Lowdon, insists that following the debacle of Melbourne the team will be in a better state by Sepang next week.

"We'll be in a much better position by the time we get to Kuala Lumpur," he said. "As a team we missed the chance to show what we can do in Melbourne. It was primarily down to software, they're tremendously complex cars.

"If everything had gone smoothly it wouldn't have been a problem but life's not like that. They were reasonably small problems but when you're up against immoveable time scales they're very visible. No-one will let us race on Monday when everyone else races on the Sunday."