Background In 2009, Manor Grand Prix were awarded an entry into Formula One for the season, as a tie-up between successful junior racing team
Manor Motorsport and
Wirth Research. Before the end of that year, these entities became known as Virgin Racing, after
Richard Branson's
Virgin Group of companies who had bought the title sponsorship rights. Marussia were one of the team's partners for its debut season, where it finished in twelfth and last place in the Constructors' Championship. In November 2010, Marussia Motors purchased a controlling stake in the team, and the team became known as 'Marussia Virgin Racing' for the season. Following a disappointing start to the 2011 season, the team parted company with
Wirth Research and entered a partnership with
McLaren Applied Technologies ahead of the 2012 season. With this came a relocation from the original base in
Dinnington, to the old Wirth premises in Banbury in Great Britain. Meanwhile, the team again finished the year bottom of the Constructors' Championship. In November 2011, it applied to the Formula One commission to formally change their constructor name for the
2012 season from Virgin to Marussia, to reflect their new ownership. Permission was granted before being formally ratified at a meeting of the
FIA World Motor Sport Council.
2012 season driving the
Marussia MR01 at the
2012 Malaysian Grand Prix On 31 December 2011, Marussia Virgin Racing announced they were now called Marussia F1 Team. Virgin, who had previously been the title sponsor for the team, announced that they would be staying with the team and feature its logos staying on the 2012 car. The team had announced in July 2011 that
Timo Glock had signed a new three-year contract with the team. Glock would be joined for the 2012 season by
GP2 Series graduate
Charles Pic, who spent two days testing with the team at the Young Driver Test in Abu Dhabi. and
Timo Glock leading the
HRTs of
Pedro de la Rosa and
Narain Karthikeyan during the
2012 Bahrain Grand Prix By 29 September 2011, Marussia already had a 60% scale model of their 2012 car ready for use in the McLaren wind tunnel. The team received its first parts for the car in December 2011. The team also announced that the 2012 car would be the only car on the grid not to have the new-to-F1,
Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS). This status lasted only for one race weekend. Rival team HRT failed to qualify within the 107% time and were not allowed to race at the season opener in Australia. HRT decided that it was best to remove KERS from the car and focus on successfully qualifying. Prior to the final testing session for the 2012 season at Barcelona, on 27 February the team announced via its website that the new
MR01 car had failed the last of the mandatory 18 crash tests required of each car by the FIA. This meant the team would miss the final pre-season testing, instead choosing to concentrate on passing the remaining crash test in time for the first race of the year, the . On 5 March 2012, Marussia revealed the MR01 at
Silverstone. The car design was led by technical consultant
Pat Symonds and the team became the penultimate team to reveal its car for the 2012 season. On 3 July 2012, test driver
María de Villota was testing a car at
Duxford Airfield, when she crashed heavily into the lift gate of the team transporter, and sustained serious injuries. She had been performing straight line aerodynamic tests in preparation for the . On 4 July 2012, it was confirmed that de Villota lost her right eye as a result of the accident; a year later, she died as a result of the injuries. At
Spa, the team's 50th Grand Prix as Virgin/Marussia, Charles Pic was fastest in free practice 2 with Timo Glock sixth. This became the highest ever result in an official Formula One session for the team in its history thanks, however, to the fact that only 10 drivers had set times in the session, due to heavy rain conditions. In
Singapore, Timo Glock produced the then best ever race result for Marussia, finishing in 12th place; a result sufficient to elevate Marussia into 10th place in the Constructors' Championship, ahead of closest rivals,
Caterham and
HRT. However, at the final race of the season in
Brazil,
Vitaly Petrov, racing for Caterham, finished the race in 11th place, thus reclaiming 10th place in the Constructors' Championship and the associated prize money for Caterham, demoting Marussia to 11th in the Championship.
2013 season driving for Marussia during pre-season testing (1989–2015) driving the
Marussia MR02 at the
2013 Malaysian Grand Prix On 18 December 2012, Marussia announced that
Max Chilton would make his Formula One debut in 2013 after securing the second race seat at the team, making him the fourth different driver in the history of the Marussia/Virgin team. Reportedly, Timo Glock left Marussia before the 2013 season for "commercial reasons".
Luiz Razia also followed suit shortly after due to sponsorship difficulties, resulting in
Ferrari Driver Academy driver,
Jules Bianchi, making his Formula One driver début for the season. On 14 March 2013,
Rodolfo González was appointed as the team's reserve driver. For the first race in Australia, both cars qualified ahead of rivals Caterham, while at the , Bianchi finished the race in thirteenth position. Throughout the year, Marussia and their nearest rivals Caterham remained at the back of the grid, usually qualifying on the back two rows. They fared better in racing, however, and whilst they failed to score any points, they demonstrated good reliability throughout the season. By the end of it, Marussia finished tenth in the Constructors' Championship, ahead of Caterham, earning them significant additional revenue for 2014. English driver Max Chilton became the first rookie driver ever to finish every race in a season.
2014 season driving the
MR03 at the
2014 Singapore Grand Prix For 2014, Marussia decided to power its
MR03 car with
Ferrari engines. Cosworth elected not to build an engine for the new 2014 regulations. The team retained both Jules Bianchi and Max Chilton as its drivers. At the , Bianchi scored his own and Marussia's first ever points by finishing ninth in an eventful race. However, this decision was reversed the following morning during the free practice session. During the at
Suzuka on 5 October, Bianchi's car spun off on lap 43, colliding with a marshal's crane tractor that was attending to
Adrian Sutil's
Sauber car, which had also spun and crashed at the Dunlop curve (Turn 7) on the previous lap. The safety car was brought out and the race was subsequently red-flagged. Bianchi was reported as being unconscious after the crash, failing to respond to a radio call from his team and marshals that had gone to his rescue. Due to the precarious weather conditions at the time, he was taken to closest hospital, the
Mie University hospital, by ambulance instead of helicopter. On the same day, Bianchi's father reported that his son was in a critical condition with a
head injury requiring brain surgery in order to reduce severe bruising to his head. Soon after, the
FIA released a statement that
CT scans had shown Bianchi suffered a "severe head injury" in the crash, and he would be transferred to
intensive care following surgery. A family update later, aside from acknowledging the widespread support, confirmed that Bianchi had suffered a
diffuse axonal injury, which is a common
traumatic brain injury in vehicle accidents involving high deceleration. Bianchi eventually succumbed to his injuries in July 2015. At the inaugural a weekend later, in place of the hospitalized Bianchi, the team originally registered Rossi in the participant list, before finally deciding to field a single car driven by Bianchi's teammate, Max Chilton. In addition, at the same venue, Marussia raced its MR03 car with "#JB17" livery, after Bianchi's initials and race number, to further honour and support their injured driver. Aside from providing updates on their seriously injured driver's medical condition in conjunction with the Bianchi family, a fortnight after the Suzuka accident, the Marussia team also went on public record to condemn various media reports that have been making speculative assertions about the team's direct role in that accident. On 25 October, it was announced that, along with Caterham, Marussia would be unable to compete at the due to financial reasons. As transport of Formula One team equipment between the USA and Brazil for return to Europe is coordinated together, Marussia also missed the following weekend's . Around the same time, further media reports revealed that, Formula One teams have agreed to teams in difficulty to miss out up to two races per season and that, on 7 October 2014, Marussia Manor Racing filed a notice in the London High Court intending to assign an administrator. An official statement by the appointed administrator was released on 27 October 2014. In addition, British media reported that British-Indian steel industry brothers Baljinder Sohi and Sonny Kaushal were potential buyers for the team. At the
United States Grand Prix, although in breach of Formula One regulations by not being present at that race weekend, the FIA stewards decided to not impose any penalties, in consequence of the team's current financial circumstances, similar to those of the also missing
Caterham F1 team. Instead, they referred the matter to the attention of the FIA president. On 5 November 2014, the FIA included the team in the provisional entry list for the 2015 Formula One season but as the "Manor F1 Team". Despite this optimism, Marussia failed to appear at the last three races of the season, with its assets sold at auction in mid-December 2014. With the aim of facilitating the entry of his
F1 team in 2016, it is reported that
Gene Haas purchased Marussia's Banbury base as well as data and designs for the 2015 car, which was already well developed with a scale wind-tunnel model. After the death of Bianchi, the team's former backer, Andrey Cheglakov, revealed that the events at the 2014 Japanese Grand Prix were a key factor in his decision to quit his financial support of the team.
2015 season On 19 February 2015, Manor Motorsport's administrators announced that the team had come out of administration and planned to enter the
2015 Formula One season under the name Manor Marussia F1 Team with
John Booth and
Graeme Lowdon continuing to run the team. This was possible thanks to businessman
Stephen Fitzpatrick buying the team, with
Justin King joining as chairman. driving the
MR03B during the Canadian GP race weekend On 5 February 2015, however, the team's request to compete in the season using their 2014 chassis was declined by the other Formula One entrants, after
Force India voted against the proposal. This report was refuted by the team the following day. Manor ultimately started the season with a modified version of their 2014 car, updated to meet 2015 regulations, and expect to have a new car built specifically for the 2015 regulations ready by the August break. On 25 February 2015,
Will Stevens was confirmed as Manor's first driver. On 9 March, it was also announced that
Roberto Merhi would be Manor's second driver with
Jordan King – son of the new chairman – also joining as the development driver. On 5 March 2015, the team completed mandatory crash testing and were cleared to take their place on the starting grid at the , just in time for the air freight deadline on 6 March. Despite this, neither car completed a single lap due to technical difficulties and sat out the entire event. At the following , both drivers failed to qualify for the race, but received permission from the stewards to start. However, Stevens was unable to leave his garage on race day due to a fuel system problem on his car. Merhi finished his first race in 15th position. A short-lived controversy ensued after the race thanks to claims made by
Force India's deputy team principal, Bob Fernley, that Manor Marussia had a clear strategy to run just one car in Malaysia. These claims were dismissed by Manor. Prior to the , the team announced the recruitment of
Fabio Leimer as reserve driver and, more crucially, of former
Mercedes F1 team technical director,
Bob Bell, as technical consultant. The latter followed a series of other key recruitments in May 2015, including those of Gianluca Pisanello, formerly of
Caterham F1 as chief engineer, and former
Toro Rosso chief designer, Luca Furbatto, as head of design. In addition to new livery, the
MR03B race car also received its first updates at the latter Grand Prix. Ahead of the
Mexican Grand Prix, the team announced that their team bosses
John Booth and
Graeme Lowdon had resigned, effective at the end of , citing differences with team owner
Stephen Fitzpatrick. After the 2015 season,
Manor Marussia, officially changed their name to
Manor Racing. ==Complete Formula One results==