29/03/2015
NEWS STORY
The Manor Marussia F1 Team's Roberto Merhi took his first chequered flag of the 2015 season at Sepang today, finishing the 2015 Formula 1 Petronas Malaysia Grand Prix in 15th place. In doing so he delivered not only a fantastic reward for the incredible hard work of the past few months, but also some valuable data with which to commence the 2015 development programme.
Unfortunately Will Stevens was unable to start the race as the team was unable to get on top of the fuel system problems which first surfaced in Free Practice 3 and into Qualifying.
Roberto Merhi: "I'm so happy for the team. P15 is not only a great result from today's race, but also a huge reward for a fantastic effort over the past few months. I'm really proud of us. Coming into the weekend we knew things would not be easy; we had to work very hard and stay focused every step of the way. We missed out on some of our targets but in the end it was the race that mattered and we brought the car home with a full race distance. That was my main objective, as the information we now have is so important for our development, but it's good to know that we got a good result along the way and finished ahead of some of the other teams. I'm sorry for Will that he was unable to race today but we have a very good starting point for us both to work from in China and beyond. My thanks to the whole team for a really positive weekend."
Will Stevens: "Obviously I'm disappointed that I wasn't able to race today. We pushed as hard as possible all weekend and there are quite a few positives that I can take away from Malaysia, including the promising pace in free practice. We'll work on that for China, but for now my congratulations to the whole team on completing our first race distance. It's a fantastic reward for all the hard work of the last few months."
John Booth, Team Principal: "We couldn't be more thrilled to see the chequered flag today. We've had to overcome some massive hurdles in a very short space of time, so everyone is pretty emotional this afternoon because this result is just reward for an incredible amount of hard work and determination from a fantastic team of people. Roberto delivered the solid race performance we asked of him, and that will stand us in such good stead as we head to China. Let's not forget that this is the first real data we've had to work with. Of course, we're disappointed that we didn't achieve that same objective with two cars and our apologies to Will that he was denied the chance to convert a positive start to the weekend into what I'm sure would have been a similarly strong race performance. We hope for better things for him in China in two weeks' time. We still have a great deal of hard work ahead, so we'll enjoy the moment and then get straight back to it tomorrow."
Check out our Sunday gallery, here.