Mercedes could expand F1 partnership with Manor in future

At present Mercedes supplies engines to Manor, while both its development drivers in Pascal Wehrlein and Esteban Ocon now have race seats with the team.

"When we started the [Mercedes F1] project a couple of years ago there was no capacity for setting up a junior programme," said Wolff.

"Max [Verstappen] is a good example. He fell through because we didn't have a system in place.

"The only thing we were able to offer him was a seat in GP2, but that was clearly not as good as a Toro Rosso seat.

"We obviously made an agreement with Manor for Pascal, and that works well, and then the opportunity [for Ocon] came up because [Rio] Haryanto was out.

"We had a couple of weeks of negotiations, found a reasonable deal, and there are areas where we support Manor.

"It seems the relationship is having different angles now.

"We're not a shareholder, we don't plan to be, and we don't want to own the team or subsidise it.

"The main objective is to win championships with Mercedes, but there could be a co-operation with Manor that goes beyond what we do today.

"So the plans of having a junior team, which we would co-own, haven't changed. We will not co-own another Formula 1 team."

At present Wehrlein and Ocon's drives with Manor are on the back of Mercedes offering the team a discount on the cost of its power unit supply package.

That is an arrangement that could continue for next season should Manor be happy with the performance of both drivers, and Mercedes be willing to again offer a rebate on the price of the engines.