Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsManor

Booth and Lowdon to leave Manor

Manor bosses John Booth and Graeme Lowdon have tendered their resignations and are leave the team at the end of the season.

While yet to be officially announced by the team, a senior Manor source confirmed to F1i that both Booth and Lowdon are due to depart following the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix next month. It is understood the decision has come following differences of opinion with team owner Stephen Fitzpatrick, whose backing helped bring the team out of administration and return it to the grid this season.

Team principal Booth set up Manor Motorsport in 1990, with sporting director Lowdon joining the team a decade later. Having been very successful in junior categories, the pair then entered Formula One in 2010, with the Manor Grand Prix team initially running as Virgin Racing and later Marussia before this year returning to Manor.

Having entered administration after last year's Russian Grand Prix, the team was not expected to return to the grid until a takeover deal from Fitzpatrick - who owns Ovo Energy - was confirmed at the start of this season. Fitzpatrick invested around £30million to help the team rebuild after many of its assets had been auctioned to pay off debts.

While 2015 has seen the team running last year's chassis as well as a year-old Ferrari power unit, Manor is expected to make a big step forward in 2016 having secured a supply of Mercedes power units and entered in to a technical partnership with Williams.

The team is currently 10th in the constructors' championship with a best finish of 12th place so far this season.

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.