Manor Marussia team principal Graeme Lowdon has confirmed he will leave the team at the end of the season, after reports he and team founder John Booth had handed in their resignations.
The pair have yet to confirm the reasons behind their sudden departure, which is also believed to include other senior staff, with Lowdon instead focussing on ensuring the team makes the final race in Abu Dhabi, unlike in 2014.
“Abu Dhabi’s going to be my last race with the team and rather than focus on the reasons, I would prefer to focus on the fact that the most important task this year was to make sure that the team continued racing.
“We had to stop before the end of last season, we weren’t in Abu Dhabi last year, and that required an awful lot of hard work and an awful lot of commitment as well.”
He went on to thank those involved in securing Manor’s future during their struggle over the winter to get back on the grid.
“We worked very very hard to make sure that the team was in a position to continue racing. And we had a lot of help.
“Now is probably my only opportunity actually to thank a few people who were instrumental in the team being able to continue and certainly over that period, November, December, January, we received a lot of help from Bernie Ecclestone in particular, also from Jean Todt.
“But also from Ferrari who were really, again, instrumental, not just in the team being able to survive and get an engine deal at very short notice but also from the very first race, a commitment from James Allison in particular.
“And of course the staff at the team; we had to get a team back together very very quickly and that would not have happened if we hadn’t have been able to attract a lot of the same faces who were with the team in the previous years.
“Again, that was extremely important. If that hadn’t have happened, the team wouldn’t have continued as well, so a lot of things had to come together and so from my point of view, this has been a pretty difficult season but that’s secondary to the fact that the team continues, and that’s the most important thing.”
