Recent additions a boost for Manor - Stevens

In spite of its limited financial capacities and minnow status in Formula 1, Manor Marussia has boosted its engineering staff recently, enlisting, amongst others, former Mercedes technical director Bob Bell.

The recent hirings will help enhance the team's expertise and experience, and are welcome additions according to Will Stevens.

"They are all interesting people with a lot of experience with different teams, and that's exactly what we need," Stevens told F1i on Thursday. "We need a good direction to go in, and I think it's really positive for the team that these people have come in."

Stevens admitted the plan of moving Manor up the ladder was a work in progress, with one step taken at a time.

"There's a clear direction of where we want to go. Things are not going to happen overnight but there is a plan for us to move forward and to really start making big improvements. We always knew that this year would be the start of our journey, and it was always going to be difficult but I'm sure moving forward we can really make some good progress. It'll be exciting to see how far we can go."

Although Will Stevens was not familiar with technical consultant Bob Bell before his arrival at Manor, he believes the British engineer will prove instrumental in developing the team's internal capabilities.

"I don't know how involved Bob will be on a day to day basis but I'm sure the team will draw as much information from him as they can. And personally I need to try and get as much from that as I can. He's worked with world champions before, so I'm sure he's got a lot of things that can help me as well. "

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