Manor Grand Prix is the newest team to enter Formula One but their arrival in next year’s championship has not been without controversy. The FIA published the 2010 entry list last week but few people were expecting Manor’s name to appear on it alongside the existing teams.

Regardless of the current political wrangling between FOTA and the FIA, there is space for at least three new constructors in Formula One next year. With some sort of budget cap in place for the 2010 season, 15 new teams submitted applications to take up the available positions.

The FIA’s announcement last week confirmed which of those applications had been successful.

The first of the new teams was always going to be USF1. Peter Windsor and Ken Anderson applied to enter next year’s championship with their American based squad some months ago, so no one was surprised when the FIA confirmed their place on the 2010 grid.

The other two slots were widely expected to go to Prodrive and Lola.

Prodrive’s first attempt at entering Formula One came in 2008, but their team failed to materialise when the proposed customer car regulations were not introduced. At the time the FIA said they would gladly welcome Prodrive back into the sport again if the opportunity arose, which is why Dave Richards’ company was confident of being accepted into F1 next year.

Lola was also expecting to make the cut since they already have the staff and facilities required to run a self sufficient Formula One operation. They have even built a 2010 spec car and have run it through their wind tunnel, so are now somewhat bemused to be left sitting on the sidelines.

Instead, the two vacant franchises behind USF1 went to Campos Racing and Manor Motorsport. Both selections were a surprise, but one of them was more of a shock than the other.

Adrian Campos has been aiming to enter Formula One for some time now and named his company Campos ‘Grand Prix’ as far back as 1998. He reportedly went very close to buying out Super Aguri twelve months ago, so although his place in F1 next year ahead of Prodrive and Lola was not expected, it hasn’t come from nowhere. Campos Grand Prix has everything in place to be a very serious team in Formula One.

The inclusion of Manor Grand Prix was not so explicable.

Manor does not have the international profile to match Prodrive or Lola (or even Campos) and has never expressed any previous interest in moving up the motorsport ladder.

However, that does not mean the organisation will be out of its depth in Formula One.

In fact, the team has a decent amount of motor racing history and pedigree behind it.

Manor Grand Prix is essentially a combination of two companies, Manor Motorsport and Wirth Design.

Manor Motorsport started back in 1991 when it was founded by John Booth. The 54 year old is a retired racer who made it as far as British Formula Three, and in the early eighties he won the Formula Ford 1600 Castle Comb Championship.

In 1990 Booth stopped driving, but he wanted to stay involved in the sport so decided to start his own team. Manor Motorsport was born and the outfit ran Formula Renault cars in the UK and Europe, The team was instantly successful and won two championships in their very first year of operation.

Manor Motorsport went on to claim a further 12 Formula Renault championship wins over the next 15 years and became the leading team of its kind in Europe.

Manor also raced with success in Formula Ford, and then expanded into the British Formula Three series in 1999. Again, the team was triumphant in their debut season and they won the F3 title with Marc Hynes (beating Jenson Button who moved into F1 the following year). Antonio Pizzonia successfully defended the championship for Manor in 2000, and the team later won races at the Macau Grand Prix and the Marlboro Masters in Zandvoort.

In 2007, John Booth sold his Formula Renault business and elected to focus on just Formula Three instead. By that stage Booth had switched his attentions from the British championship to the F3 Euroseries, in which he has now contested five seasons. Manor has been runner up twice in the teams championship, and things are looking promising again this year as their lead driver, Roberto Merhi, is in a close fight for the title.

Over the past two decades Manor Motorsport has developed into a large racing team and its facilities have become oversized for Formula Three. The proposed budget cap for 2010 brought Formula One into their realm.

John Booth is the boss of Manor Grand Prix and his men will run the team, but the cars will be designed, built, developed and engineered by Wirth Design.

Although Wirth Design is just a supplier to Manor Grand Prix, they are providing the biggest and most important part, and the F1 dream would not be possible without them.

The company was started by Nick Wirth in 2003 but has roots that go back to 1989.

Nick Wirth graduated from university with a degree in Mechanical Engineering and worked for March as an aerodynamicist. His designs were used by Lleyton House in the late eighties, but Wirth had bigger ambitions and set up his own business.

In 1989 he founded Simtek Research with Max Mosley. The company had a wind tunnel and did aerodynamic testing for a number of F1 teams and racing establishments around the world. Thanks to Max Mosley’s connections, the FIA was one of their biggest clients, although Max sold his share of Simtek to Wirth when he became FIA president.

BMW used Simtek Research to design a Formula One car for them in the early nineties, but the Bavarians got cold feet and the project was aborted. In 1993 Nick Wirth started producing another F1 car, this time for the Bravo Grand Prix team, but when Bravo also failed to get off the ground Wirth continued with development and entered the Formula One Championship for himself.

Simtek Grand Prix was launched in 1994, but success was hard to come by and the cars were often the slowest in the field. This was partly because the team’s original chassis was designed to run with active suspension, but this was banned for the new season and Simtek’s revised car did not meet its full potential. Tragically, the year was overshadowed by the by the fatal accident that claimed the life of Roland Ratzenburger at San Marino.

The on track results were no better in 1995 and when sponsors started pulling out mid year, Wirth went into voluntary liquidation.

Despite the collapse of Simtek, Nick Wirth stayed involved in Formula One and joined Benetton as Chief Designer in 1996. He held that position for three years, before leaving and creating Wirth Research, a company that is very similar to the one he first started with Mosley.

Wirth Research currently builds cars for the Indy Racing League and the American Le Mans Series, and still does work for the FIA. Interestingly, Wirth was responsible for coming up with that ugly split rear wing design a few years back that was supposed to increase overtaking in F1.

Just like Manor Motorsport, Wirth’s facilities have now become large enough to support a Formula One program.

The best thing for Nick Wirth in his arrangement with Manor Grand Prix is that he has no responsibility for the funding and management of the team. He simply has to provide the cars, which is what he does best.

Together, John Booth and Nick Wirth have the resources to compete in Formula One. With that in mind, Manor Grand Prix’s inclusion on the 2010 entry list can be fully justified.

There is some suggestion that Lola and Prodrive were intentionally left off the 2010 entry list to place extra pressure on the existing teams to sign up unconditionally. If true, Manor’s entry might be part of a political move by the FIA that would surely have been helped by Nick Wirth’s close relationship with Max Mosley.

However, the team is still very serious about their place on the grid next year and preparations are well underway. A car has already been designed, and planning permission has been granted to further expand the facilities in Yorkshire.

Manor Grand Prix has arrived.

John Booth told reporters “I don’t expect to win races immediately, don’t get me wrong, but I expect to surprise a few people”.

He already has.

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