Marussia F1: The Team From Virgin Racing to Manor Marussia

The Marussia F1 Team competed in Formula One from 2010 to 2015 under several names. Its only championship points came when Jules Bianchi finished ninth at the 2014 Monaco Grand Prix, and the squad fell into administration later that year.

Where did Marussia F1 come from?

The team began in 2010 as Virgin Racing, a Manor Grand Prix and Wirth Research tie-up that Richard Branson's Virgin group sponsored. Marussia Motors bought a controlling stake in November 2010, and the team ran as Marussia Virgin Racing for 2011.

Virgin finished twelfth and last in the 2010 Constructors' Championship. The 2011 season ended at the bottom again, and the team then parted with Wirth Research and turned to McLaren Applied Technologies for 2012, moving to the old Wirth premises at Banbury.

The Marussia name was approved in November 2011, and the team announced itself as the Marussia F1 Team on 31 December 2011.

Six seasons, one set of championship points and a rebuild under a new name.

How did the MR01 reach the grid in 2012?

The MR01 was revealed at Silverstone on 5 March 2012, shortly after failing its final mandatory crash test and missing the final pre-season test. Technical consultant Pat Symonds led the design, and the team was the penultimate one to reveal its car.

The team had a 60% scale model in the McLaren wind tunnel by September 2011, long before the car was finished.

The team announced that the 2012 car would lack KERS, the kinetic energy recovery system new to Formula One, but that status lasted only one race weekend. Rival HRT missed the 107% limit in Australia and was not allowed to race, so it removed its own KERS to focus on qualifying.

Timo Glock stayed on under a three-year contract signed in July 2011, and Charles Pic arrived from GP2 for 2012 after testing with the team in Abu Dhabi.

How did the 2012 season unfold?

Glock finished 12th at Singapore, the best race result in the team's history, which lifted Marussia to tenth in the championship ahead of its closest rivals, Caterham and HRT. Vitaly Petrov later reclaimed tenth for Caterham at Brazil, and Marussia finished 11th.

The season was overshadowed by the injury to Maria de Villota, the team's test driver. She was hurt on 3 July 2012 while testing at Duxford, and she lost her right eye. She died a year later from the injuries.

Pic was fastest in the Spa free practice 2 session, with Glock sixth, in what was the 50th race for the Virgin and Marussia names. It was the highest official session result in the team's history, though only ten drivers had set times in the wet session.

What changed for the 2013 season?

Max Chilton's debut was announced on 18 December 2012, after he secured the second race seat. Timo Glock left before the season for commercial reasons, Luiz Razia followed over sponsorship difficulties, and Jules Bianchi, a Ferrari Driver Academy product, made his debut.

Marussia and Caterham usually qualified on the back two rows, and neither team scored points in 2013. Both were reliable, and The team placed tenth in the constructors' table, above Caterham.

Max Chilton became the first rookie to finish every race in a season. Rodolfo Gonzalez was named reserve driver on 14 March 2013. In Australia both cars qualified ahead of Caterham, and Bianchi finished 13th in Malaysia.

How did Monaco change the 2014 season?

The MR03 ran on Ferrari engines in 2014, after Cosworth declined to build an engine for the new regulations. Bianchi and Chilton stayed on as the drivers. Bianchi finished ninth at Monaco, scoring Marussia's first points, and the squad became the first constructor on a Russian licence to score points.

Alexander Rossi joined as a test and reserve driver on 24 July 2014, coming from Caterham. On 21 August the team announced he would replace Chilton at Belgium, but the decision was reversed the following morning.

What happened at the 2014 Japanese Grand Prix?

On 5 October 2014 Bianchi's car ran off at Suzuka on lap 43 and collided with a recovery vehicle attending to a car that had spun off earlier, and the race was red-flagged. He suffered a severe head injury and a diffuse axonal injury, and he died in July 2015.

Why did Marussia collapse in late 2014?

The team filed a notice of administration on 7 October 2014. On 25 October it said it would miss the US Grand Prix for financial reasons, and its administrator later reported that the team had ceased trading on 7 November.

Andrey Cheglakov, the main financial backer, confirmed he had withdrawn his support that week. British media named Baljinder Sohi and Sonny Kaushal as possible buyers, but the team's assets were later auctioned in mid-December 2014.

About 200 staff were made redundant when the team stopped trading. Gene Haas reportedly bought the Banbury base along with the design data for the 2015 car.

Marussia missed the last three races of 2014.

Teams in difficulty could miss up to two races a season, and the FIA stewards imposed no penalty at the US Grand Prix for the absence. The provisional 2015 entry list still included the team on 5 November 2014, two days before the administrator announced that trading had stopped.

How did the team return as Manor Marussia in 2015?

The team came out of administration on 19 February 2015 as Manor Marussia, after Stephen Fitzpatrick bought it and Justin King joined as chairman. Will Stevens was confirmed as first driver on 25 February, and Roberto Merhi as second on 9 March.

On 5 February 2015 the other teams declined the request to use the 2014 chassis, so the team started the year with a modified 2014 car.

Rossi took over from Merhi for five of the last seven rounds of the year. Booth and Lowdon resigned at the end of 2015, pointing to disagreements with the owner.

The team was renamed Manor Racing after the 2015 season and used Mercedes-Benz power units in 2016.

What did the 2015 season look like?

Manor Marussia started 2015 with a modified 2014 car. The team completed mandatory crash testing on 5 March 2015, and neither car completed a lap at the Australian Grand Prix because of technical difficulties. The team had only been reborn weeks earlier, so the opening rounds were a rebuild.

In Malaysia both drivers failed to qualify but received the stewards' permission to start. Will Stevens could not leave his garage on race day because of a fuel system problem, and Roberto Merhi finished 15th.

Bob Fernley of Force India, the deputy team principal, suggested that Manor meant to run just one car in Malaysia, and the team rejected the suggestion.

Before the Canadian Grand Prix the team recruited Fabio Leimer as reserve driver and Bob Bell as technical consultant. It also hired Gianluca Pisanello, formerly of Caterham, as chief engineer, and Luca Furbatto, a former Toro Rosso chief designer, as head of design. Those hires came in a recruitment drive during May 2015.

Airbnb and the container maker Flex-Box became team partners, with their logos carried for the rest of the season. Its first upgrades arrived at the British round.

What was the Russian licence, and why did it matter?

Marussia used a Russian licence between 2012 and 2014, then switched to a British one in 2015. The Russian link came through Marussia Motors, a Moscow sports car maker that is now defunct. The switch came with the rebirth under new owners.

The operator, Manor Motorsport, had once been a subsidiary of Marussia Motors. The team moved from Dinnington to the old Wirth premises at Banbury before the collapse.

The team kept the Marussia constructor name throughout 2015 while adopting British nationality.

How did the team's finances collapse and recover?

The team collapsed owing around 60 million pounds, and two of its creditors were former rivals McLaren and Ferrari. The exit from administration, after a company voluntary arrangement and new investment, came in February 2015. Both creditors were established Formula One names.

The administrators had cancelled an auction on 19 January 2015 to allow a possible buy-out. Former Sainsbury's chief executive Justin King was reportedly the main backer, and Stephen Fitzpatrick became the owner.

Who were the team's leading drivers and staff?

Timo Glock, Charles Pic, Jules Bianchi, Max Chilton, Luiz Razia, Alexander Rossi, Will Stevens and Roberto Merhi all drove for the team at some point. Graeme Lowdon was the team's chief executive for much of the period, and John Booth ran the team alongside him.

Lowdon remained adamant that Marussia could return for the Abu Dhabi finale, with a view to securing its entry for 2015, even as the assets were being sold.

What happened at the Russian Grand Prix in 2014?

The team had registered Rossi for the inaugural Russian Grand Prix a weekend after the Suzuka crash, but then ran a single car driven by Max Chilton. The MR03 wore #JB17 livery to honour Bianchi, who was still in hospital.

Two weeks after the Suzuka accident the team condemned media reports that speculated about its role in the crash, and it published updates on Bianchi's condition in conjunction with his family.

What were the team's key results?