As reported earlier, Manor has sealed the deal with former McLaren driver Fernando Alonso.

Signing of the season

By securing Alonso, Manor has arguably made the deal of the season. Alonso’s stats will be alpha omega in the Band C team’s efforts to finally beat their bitter rivals from BRM.

“We are really happy to be announcing the signing of Alonso”, says Manor Team Principal /u/macus16.

“We debated a number of drivers who could come into the team and be able to improve our chances of beating our direct rivals BRM and push us into the mix of Band B teams”, he continues. “We looked at the success Sauber achieved last season with Hamilton. We wanted to improve at Manor and we came to the conclusion that Alonso would be the right man for the job. I also have to give a mention to /u/splendidtree who was pivotal in the decision.”

Sirotkin and Chilton released

In order to make room for Alonso in the small team budget, both drivers from last season had to be let go. When asked to comment, /u/macus16 had this to say:

“We give our thanks to Max and Sergey for the past season. Max scored points for us in two races, which were a huge bonus for us. It was a hard call to let him go. He was a popular driver and I am pleased to see he has been snatched straight up by Lotus. I wish him and Lotus all the best for the coming season.”

Season goal is beating BRM

The Team Principal also lifts the veil of the teams goal of beating BRM this season – A goal that will be quite the challenge, even with Alonso on board.

“There will be some great battles between us in the coming races, we will have to wait and see if that’s the case at the end of the season. Our target is to beat BRM and push the race to some lower band B teams. I believe we can achieve this.”