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As of this morning (GMT), Manor Racing's holding company went into administration after talks with a potential buyer broke down. As we all know, Manor finished 11th and last in the 2016 Constructors' Championship, and are thus ineligible for prize money. Its owners no longer want to pump in the cash necessary to keep the team afloat.
That being said, of the teams which entered F1 since 2010, there was only one case of a current top driver starting out their F1 career with them - that being Daniel Ricciardo with HRT in 2011, before he moved onto Toro Rosso the next year. The rest of the drivers who have driven for them can either be described as seeking refuge from an unfavourable driver market (Glock, Kovalainen and Trulli in 2010), taking a gamble on a new venture (Grosjean moving to Haas - you could throw Glock, Kovalainen and Trulli in there too), pay drivers and one case of a talent cut short before his prime (Bianchi).
After F1 teams became more professional and reliant on sponsorship rather than prize money and (let's be honest) gentlemen drivers in the early-to-mid-70s (feel free to correct me), most of the great drivers of the next four decades started out with backmarker teams. Schumacher and Barrichello started with Jordan, Massa, Raikkonen and Frentzen started with Sauber, Senna started with Toleman, Piquet started with Ensign, Hakkinen started with a dying Team Lotus, and both Webber and Alonso started with the most famous backmarker team of them all, Minardi...and these are just the foremost examples I can think of.
But in the 2000s, things started to change. The influx of manufacturer-backed teams like BMW, Honda and Toyota (as well as Red Bull) preferred to either go for established drivers (like Honda hiring Barrichello and Button) or bringing their own talent up through the ranks (like BMW giving Kubica and Vettel their debuts) before giving them a race seat. McLaren also copied that approach, as they plonked Lewis Hamilton into a race-winning car as soon as he won the GP2 title, as well as bringing in Kevin Magnussen and Stoffel Vandoorne in 2014 and 2016 respectively. Red Bull went as far as buying out that most famous backmarker team Minardi and using them as a B-team. Now there is no longer a need for a driver to hone his craft at the back of the grid, but instead impress enough in karting or F4 to get noticed by an F1 team.
Fast forward to 2017. Each of the big manufacturer-backed/aligned teams - Ferrari, McLaren, Mercedes, Red Bull and Renault - all have driver development programmes, to the extent where one of them has a B-team, Toro Rosso, which has produced some very promising talent for the decade to come. Williams have given a seat to a teenager whose father paid well over US$60m to get him to that point, and are probably going to get some compensation for losing Bottas to Mercedes, Force India seem to have heavy backing from Carlos Slim's telecoms empire and a decent Constructors' Championship bonus, Haas are backed by a billionaire and Sauber are keeping their heads above water thanks to a combination of snatching that 10th place bonus away from Manor and the Longbow group's investment. If Manor make it through the 2017 season, it'll be as the result of heavy dependence on a couple (or even three, if they need to rent out a test seat) of pay drivers who offer no promise in F1 anyway.
That being said, of the teams which entered F1 since 2010, there was only one case of a current top driver starting out their F1 career with them - that being Daniel Ricciardo with HRT in 2011, before he moved onto Toro Rosso the next year. The rest of the drivers who have driven for them can either be described as seeking refuge from an unfavourable driver market (Glock, Kovalainen and Trulli in 2010), taking a gamble on a new venture (Grosjean moving to Haas - you could throw Glock, Kovalainen and Trulli in there too), pay drivers and one case of a talent cut short before his prime (Bianchi).
After F1 teams became more professional and reliant on sponsorship rather than prize money and (let's be honest) gentlemen drivers in the early-to-mid-70s (feel free to correct me), most of the great drivers of the next four decades started out with backmarker teams. Schumacher and Barrichello started with Jordan, Massa, Raikkonen and Frentzen started with Sauber, Senna started with Toleman, Piquet started with Ensign, Hakkinen started with a dying Team Lotus, and both Webber and Alonso started with the most famous backmarker team of them all, Minardi...and these are just the foremost examples I can think of.
But in the 2000s, things started to change. The influx of manufacturer-backed teams like BMW, Honda and Toyota (as well as Red Bull) preferred to either go for established drivers (like Honda hiring Barrichello and Button) or bringing their own talent up through the ranks (like BMW giving Kubica and Vettel their debuts) before giving them a race seat. McLaren also copied that approach, as they plonked Lewis Hamilton into a race-winning car as soon as he won the GP2 title, as well as bringing in Kevin Magnussen and Stoffel Vandoorne in 2014 and 2016 respectively. Red Bull went as far as buying out that most famous backmarker team Minardi and using them as a B-team. Now there is no longer a need for a driver to hone his craft at the back of the grid, but instead impress enough in karting or F4 to get noticed by an F1 team.
Fast forward to 2017. Each of the big manufacturer-backed/aligned teams - Ferrari, McLaren, Mercedes, Red Bull and Renault - all have driver development programmes, to the extent where one of them has a B-team, Toro Rosso, which has produced some very promising talent for the decade to come. Williams have given a seat to a teenager whose father paid well over US$60m to get him to that point, and are probably going to get some compensation for losing Bottas to Mercedes, Force India seem to have heavy backing from Carlos Slim's telecoms empire and a decent Constructors' Championship bonus, Haas are backed by a billionaire and Sauber are keeping their heads above water thanks to a combination of snatching that 10th place bonus away from Manor and the Longbow group's investment. If Manor make it through the 2017 season, it'll be as the result of heavy dependence on a couple (or even three, if they need to rent out a test seat) of pay drivers who offer no promise in F1 anyway.