Manor prepares to shake down second WEC chassis

The unraced Oreca 05-Nissan chassis was a second car purchased by the KCMG team last season, and was delivered to Manor at the very end of last month's official two-day Prologue test at Paul Ricard.

It will be shaken down on Thursday at the Rockingham circuit ahead of Manor's WEC debut at Silverstone, where it is now based, on April 17. 

“We received the second car, which was being worked on at ORECA’s base just down the road from here [Paul Ricard],” Manor team principal Graeme Lowdon told Motorsport.com.

“That was really handy. A lot of things have fallen into place for us and this week and we now move in to our new facility at Silverstone.

"In just over a week we will have a bona fide home race to start a new era.”

Manor recently completed its WEC driver line-up by signing its ex-Formula 1 driver Roberto Merhi, who joins Matt Rao and Richard Bradley in the team's second entry.

Will Stevens, Tor Graves and James Jakes will share the primary car, which will be the only one to race at the Le Mans 24 Hours.

Manor accepted by ‘human’ WEC paddock

Lowdon also lauded the WEC paddock for its sporting and convivial nature after bringing his and John Booth’s team to the championship for the first time at the Paul Ricard Prologue test.

“We really enjoyed getting back to racing, or at least testing to get back to racing,” said Lowdon. “The welcome we have received from within the paddock has been fantastic really.

"We have been accepted straight away by our neighbours. To come to a human series like WEC, which is all about pure racing; it is really refreshing and satisfying to know we are going to really enjoy the sport again.”

Lowdon evaluated the test as a success with one of the ORECA 05-Nissan LMP2 cars, saying: “We ticked off many boxes, the team and drivers have all gelled well.

"There are a lot of firsts still to be ticked off and we have a growing confidence in everything we are doing this year. We will build a team to be proud of, but we are under no illusions.

"The competition is mighty and if we continue to work in a good step by step way, like we have this week, then we can be confident of having some strong races and then hopefully the results will come.”