Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsManor

Pat Fry joins Manor as engineering consultant

Manor has announced former Ferrari and McLaren man Pat Fry will work with the team as engineering consultant.

Fry was most recently Ferrari's engineering director before leaving the team in a technical restructuring at the end of the 2014 season. Prior to that, Fry had been technical director (chassis) at Maranello, with a four-year spell at Ferrari following almost two decades with McLaren where he had reached the position of chief engineer.

While not specifying how long Fry will work with the team, Manor has announced his appointment as engineering consultant, adding "the team will benefit from Pat’s considerable experience in various race engineering and technical leadership roles - with Benetton, McLaren and Scuderia Ferrari - to help develop its engineering capabilities."

Manor racing director Dave Ryan - who worked with Fry at McLaren - says the team is hoping Fry can help it maximise the potential of its new car at the start of the year.

“We are extremely fortunate to have Pat on board to help us hit the ground running with our exciting new technical package," Ryan said. "The aim is to bring performance to the car with effect from the Barcelona tests, then translate that to the race track in Melbourne, to ensure we make the strongest possible start to 2016 and have a good basis for development in the early part of the season.”

As well as having past links with Ryan at McLaren, Fry will also be reacquainted with former Ferrari chief designer Nikolas Tombazis who joined Manor as chief aerodynamicist ten days ago.

Manor will use the Mercedes power unit for the first time in 2016 following a switch from Ferrari, with he team having used year-old engines last season. It will also benefit from a technical partnership with Williams in what is expected to be a more competitive year for the team which finished 10th in the constructors' championship in 2015.

There are just two pre-season tests this year, both taking place at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya from February 22-25 and March 1-4.

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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.