The rumours and speculation were true, Manor is going to be in the WEC this season with an LMP2 programme.

Now, this isn’t exactly a move from F1 from the WEC, as the F1 team and this new WEC venture are separate. Nevertheless, this is an extremely exciting new programme for sportscar racing, one that DSC is glad to have aboard.

In speaking with DSC, the head of Manor Motorsport John Booth explained just how the programme came together, and just how recently it got the green light:

“It’s been a work in progress for a number of months,” explained Booth. “It must have been four to six weeks ago that we finally decided to do it.

“This team is completely separate with F1 now, I’ve had no contact with them since the last race in Abu Dhabi. Manor Motorsport has been in existence for 26 years, so Manor seemed the natural name for us to continue with. The Rose is in the emblem, we’re Manor, and we have a striking car.”

Along with the announcement of the programme, the team also announced its chassis, one of its drivers and the livery. The Yorkshire-based team decided to run with an ORECA 05 chassis, with Tor Graves at the wheel.

“We are very new to sportscar racing,” Booth admitted. “So we had an ask around to get people’s opinions. I managed to get in contact wth ORECA and they were very responsive, very helpful people. I don’t think there’s anything in it performance wise.

“Tor meanwhile is a good starting point for us. We have history with Tor. Tor was with us when we moved from Formula Renault to Formula 3, we won our first race with him. We hope to carry that sort of mentally on from there.”

For the other two drivers, Manor will look in its current stable, but also elsewhere. Booth chuckled at some of the potential prospects.

“Lewis and Kimi, wouldn’t that be something!? Well, they gave us Lewis’ number, so it would be an easy transition for him… In all seriousness, it’s not a requirement for us when it comes to driver selection to choose more of our own.

“We’re not sure when, but we’ll know by the Prologue who else will be in the car.”

Traditionally, Manor Motorsport has been based up in Yorkshire, but with the inception of this venture, the team has also decided to move its HQ. It’s clear that this WEC campaign has brought with it a fresh start for the team.

“We may start up in Yorkshire, but we plan to move to Silverstone quite soon.

“We’re lucky that a few of the guys from F1 last year have come over with us and will move to our new location. Recruiting from scratch would have been hard, it would have been quite difficult to hand out contracts because we don’t have a car and we didn’t know if he had an entry until it came up on the screen at the conference.

“It would have been quite cruel to invite us and not give us an entry though.”

It’s quite possible that this Manor project will turn into something quite big, and successful. LMP2 is a good starting point, but that’s not necessarily where Booth plans to keep the team. With fresh LMP1 privateer regulations on the horizion, surely that will be an option?

Whatever happens though, Manor chose sportscars, and its chosen to invest its future in it.

“We absolutely understand that this will be a learning year, we have a lot to learn in a very short time. Running a car and making a car go fast is not a challenge, but the strategy required is going to be the biggest thing for us.

“We want to be involved in endurance racing for a long time. We want to carve a name for ourselves and win races.”

“LMP1 teams spend somewhere in the region of the money we spent in Formula One,” he added. “We know how difficult it is to raise that in Formula One. Outside of manufacturers, we don’t expect to be able to play in LMP1. LMP2 then is the obvious choice, we want to go racing at the highest level.”

“If you want to be competitive, then yeah LMP2 right now is the highest level for an independent team. We considered things like IndyCar, but the romance of Le Mans won us over.

“I don’t think the platform and the regulations are published for P1 privateer yet. So until we see it we can’t really think about it. We’re really happy with LMP2 for now, they’re great cars, with great downforce and grip.

“There’s no point in doing anything else in single-seaters other than Formula One anymore, that avenue’s closed, so this is an obvious choice.

“We can’t wait to go racing in the WEC.”

Stephen Kilbey