Manor's plan to become F1's star underdog

On Sunday evening in Singapore, one man will stand on the grid, his gaze alternating between crowded grandstands and two blue-and-orange cars, thoughts transporting him back to 2014 when he sat on the other side of the fence with his mates. While they concentrated on another Lewis Hamilton procession - after Nico Rosberg retired with wiring issues - Stephen Fitzpatrick was consumed by other thoughts: how to get himself into Formula 1.

It was no idle dream, for the Belfast-born entrepreneur had more than proven his mettle in the City before founding a string of successful ventures. Still, F1 seemed too far away to be tangible. Formula E it would be, the then 36-year-old reflected - particularly as he was in the sustainable-energy business via his OVO Energy start-up.

"I looked at Formula E," he says. "Then I thought to myself that I love Formula 1, I love motorsport, but I couldn't quite imagine a way to become more involved. So I thought perhaps through [OVO] we could look at finding ways to provide renewable energy to F1 teams.

"There's a beautiful picture, you can imagine, where you use wind energy to power windtunnels. It's got a nice synergy."

Over the years, this father of three had served his time, studying F1's history voraciously, annually heading for Silverstone, his initial interest sparked by an F1-loving father who followed it on television, mainly to cheer on local hero Eddie Irvine. Like most fans, Fitzpatrick fancied himself as a racer but, in keeping with self-imposed reality checks, it was only recently that he tested a single-seater - a Formula Ford.

"We camped at Whittlebury golf course, walked to Stowe Corner, watched the race, that sort of stuff. I think it's a normal path, from watching F1 on TV with your family," he says. "I was trying to find a way to be more involved. It reached a point where being a spectator wasn't really enough anymore."

Then serendipity: on that sultry weekend in Asia, Marussia and Caterham were in survival mode; two months later it all changed as their wheels fell off and both plunged into administration. Marussia, though, had a crucial asset over Caterham: a £35million slice of F1's revenues, secured by two points scored in Monaco courtesy of Jules Bianchi.

"All of a sudden these two teams stopped racing and I thought, 'What's happened?' I didn't imagine I'd end up buying one of the teams at that stage, but I got in touch with the administrator and we talked about this a little bit before three or four months later everything worked out."

'Worked out' is a typical Fitzpatrick understatement. Between November, when Marussia skipped 2014's final two races - having previously missed the US GP - and the end of February, Fitzpatrick threw everything into persuading creditors, sponsors, grid peers, the FIA and, crucially, F1 tsar Bernie Ecclestone into accepting that this beleaguered team, still reeling after the tragic accident that had befallen Jules Bianchi, had a future.

What was his plan?

"Between when I started talking to [team founders, pictured below] Graeme Lowdon and John Booth about it in earnest and in February when we got the company out of administration, there wasn't enough time, there wasn't a huge masterplan at that stage.

"The question really was, 'Is it possible? If so, if it's even possible, what's it going to take?' What was clear to me - and I am quite upfront about this - was that, not having worked with either before, it was impossible to say whether or not it was going to be a good partnership."

At that stage it was all hands on deck - concluding the administration process and obtaining legal ownership of the company; renaming the team Manor Marussia to comply with F1's archaic protocols; persuading the FIA to grant an entry well after the cut-off date (the end of November); then getting to the first race in Melbourne complete with two cars, full race team and 26 tons of airfreight.

All the while Fitzpatrick's wife Sophie was pregnant with their third child. Is it any wonder he missed the debut of his team in Australia?

"Everybody was flat-out just trying to get there," he grins. "Before you know it you find yourself in Monaco, looking back and thinking about from where we've come. Then you're at Silverstone, and looking ahead to the next year. It all happened very quickly."

Last year was about spluttering through in adapted versions (to comply with revised safety regulations) of 2014's MR03, powered by year-old Ferrari engines. Meanwhile, the paddock muttered - unfairly, as it turned out - that Fitzpatrick, who seldom attended races and was all but invisible when he did, had acquired the team for a song to cynically strip it of what assets remained.

Fitzpatrick's low-key approach is, in retrospect, understandable. He had nothing much to say until the team was on an even keel, so why put himself at the mercy of a relentless media grilling when the time could be expended more constructively? When he did grant discussions - as at Monza 2015 with this writer - they were informative, not formal.

By then it was clear that Fitzpatrick was in for the long haul. In June, Bob Bell - fellow Belfastian, PhD in aerodynamics, former managing director of Renault Sport F1 and Mercedes - was announced as a consultant to advise on a wholesale restructure of the operation. How did such a hallowed personality get to join the back-gridding team?

"I just asked a few people up and down the paddock where I could find some extra expertise," says Fitzpatrick. "We needed all the help we could get in terms of building the car up to speed, reassembling the team, looking at a new factory set-up and so on. Bob's name came up quite a few times, and everybody had only good things to say about him. I got in touch with him, we met up, got a straightforward relationship."

In what capacity?

"I'm trying to remember exactly what the title was, whether 'engineering consultant' or 'technical consultant'. Whatever..."

The days of Lowdon and Booth were numbered, and in October it was announced that Abu Dhabi would be their last grand prix and that a 'name' was moving in. That turned out to be none other than Dave Ryan, formerly McLaren sporting director and latterly boss of his own sportscar team, who was appointed racing director, having been a colleague of Bell's at McLaren.

Further building blocks fell into place after Bell recommended the appointment of Pat Fry (ex-Ferrari and McLaren) as engineering consultant and Nikolas Tombazis (ex-Ferrari) as chief aerodynamicist. Luca Furbatto (ex-McLaren and Toro Rosso) was recruited to head up design, with John McQuilliam - the only senior survivor from the original team - bringing his masters degree in composites to bear as technical director.

Such appointments, plus a long-term lease on premises situated within sight of Marussia's former facility in Banbury (now Haas F1) - "I drive past Haas every time I visit the factory," quips Fitzpatrick - put the scurrilous rumours to rest, for such paddock luminaries would surely have checked Fitzpatrick's credibility before committing careers and reputations to a man who two years before needed to buy entrance tickets to a grand prix.

The good news did not stop there. In quick succession the team announced a technical partnership with Mercedes (cue the Bell connection), encompassing engines and technical support/windtunnel access, plus a gearbox-supply deal with Williams to replace similar agreements previously struck with McLaren. The final piece of the jigsaw was the appointment of Thomas Mayer as CEO.

The remnants of the team variously known as Manor F1, Virgin Racing, Marussia and Manor Marussia had been laid to rest, enabling it to arise as Manor Racing MRT, operating out of new premises under a totally revised management team, competing with a driver line-up led by Mercedes protege Pascal Wehrlein (now teamed with rising star Esteban Ocon), driving a new Mercedes-powered car.

That the recipe worked was proven in Austria, where Wehrlein scored a point to virtually guarantee a continuation of the 'Bernie Pot' money. Clearly that performance was the result of investment, not skimming off £35m as some had originally suspected.

Enough, though, of how MRT was resurrected by Fitzpatrick. Where is it going? He mentioned Haas F1, which, in turn, raises the question: given the Ferrari/Haas partnership, which enabled the newcomer to short-cut engineering development by sourcing componentry from Maranello, could he foresee MRT cutting a similar deal with Mercedes?

"I think the specifics around Haas/Ferrari are a bit of an anomaly," he says slowly, musing on the implications. "But it's clearly worked very well for them. Would we like a closer partnership with a world championship-winning team? Yup.

"Is there a good rationale for a team like Mercedes to partner with another team? That's a decision for them. Personally, I can see that happening with other OEM [original equipment manufacturer] teams, but that's really a decision for them, or a discussion for them."

Clearly Fitzpatrick does not wish to tread on silver toes, but, equally, MRT's management would be myopic to turn down such an opportunity.

"Anything that will help us develop the performance in the car or improve our performance on track is something we have to look at," he says.

Fitzpatrick is equally pragmatic about medium-term objectives. Where team bosses regularly trot out the 'points first year, podiums the second, wins the third and championships in the fourth' mantra, his strategy is simple.

"We set out with a five-year plan last year, and it was to make up one place a year," he says.

"The challenge in F1 is pretty straightforward. The challenge that all the teams have is to get the best performances out of all the resources that they've got. And when you improve your performance, then you tend to get more resources to work with. But every time the challenge is the same: you have to outperform your budget, you have to outperform your resources.

"For us this means the first year of the plan was to assemble a team of people with a lot of experience that can help us efficiently develop the car and get the best out of it on track. So far we are on target - we have one team behind us.

"Next year gives us a big opportunity to accelerate the one-place-a-year plan because of the changes in the regulations. We've been working on the 2017 car going back to January; we've invested a lot of the time of the senior guys who have joined into that project. We know it gives us a great opportunity because the new regulations should pretty much level the playing field.

"When we started out this year, we were racing almost a completely new car, whereas everybody else is on their third year of evolution. They've got more data, they've got more development time, so next year it's a bit of a restart for everyone. That gives us a great chance to leapfrog a couple of places if we apply ourselves properly."

By implication, then, MRT plans to be in sixth position by 2020. Is that achievable?

"What we'd like to be, our ambition, which I think is realistic although not easy, is to be the best [independent] team," he fires back.

Unusually for an F1 team owner, Fitzpatrick is open in his admiration for a competitor - in this case Force India, which he holds up as a "great model, they have great performance relative to their budget. They keep making a step every year. It shows that it can be done, and that's what we have to aspire to."

Force India is, though, politically active, whereas MRT has, in contrast to the Lowdon/Booth years, been inconspicuous in this regard. Does he accept the current political and financial imbalance between the chosen four top teams and the rest?

"I would say almost all teams, given an unlimited budget, could find a way to spend it," he says.

"If we want to find a way to make everyone financially sustainable - and that means financially sustainable for fans, for promoters, for track owners and for teams, but for fans most importantly - then we really need to look at how we can minimise or at least reduce costs without sacrificing performance. It takes a collective effort, it takes a collective will, and it may be difficult to get 11 teams to agree to anything."

Finally, is Fitzpatrick really in for the long haul, or is it a matter of adding value to the team before selling out to the highest bidder? In other words, is the businessman-turned- F1 team boss really the fan he professes to be, or is it simply about turning a buck faster than the Formula Ford he tested?

"I got into Formula 1 not to make a profit, not to make a lot of money. My ambition has always been to lose as little as possible, but I don't think I'd be happy with the idea that an external investor comes along, or somebody makes an offer to buy the team outright. The thing that would really sway any decision would be if the team is clearly better off with a new owner.

"I will do whatever's in the best interest of the team. For the time being the ideal scenario is that the team's performance improves, and I'm still here."