Pascal Wehrlein has expressed his disappointment at seeing his former team Manor Racing fold ahead of the 2017 F1 season, describing it as a 'really impressive' outfit with potential.

The Mercedes junior made his F1 debut with Manor after winning the German-based DTM touring car series a year earlier, Wehrlein scoring a famous tenth place finish of the minnow outfit at the Austrian Grand Prix for only its second points' scoring finish in seven seasons of competition.

However, with Manor unable to collect prize money for its efforts after being beaten to tenth in the constructors' standings - by Wehrlein's 2017 employers Sauber - it slipped into administration in January before folding completely by the end of the month.

It is a scenario Wehrlein was upset to see unfold, not least because of its herculean efforts against better funded and bigger teams, including Sauber.

"I was really disappointed about the Manor when it came out," Wehrlein told Crash.net. "The job we did last year was really good and really impressive.

"We started with 120 people in the team and went to close to 200, but if you compare to Sauber - who we were fighting with - they have many hundreds. We had some really good people working there and it is a shame for all the guys that lost their jobs."

Wehrlein made his Sauber race debut in the most recent Bahrain Grand Prix after skipping two races over fitness concerns, the German finishing 11th and giving the team its best qualifying result since 2015.

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