Haryanto confirmed as Manor reserve driver

2016 F1 season

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Rio Haryanto will remain with Manor as the team’s reserve driver after losing his race seat at the team.

Manor announced yesterday Haryanto will be replaced by Esteban Ocon for the rest of the year. Haryanto said on social media he was “no longer a race driver in 2016 due to lack of funds”.

“Thank you all for your kind messages,” he added. “Looking forward for the next challenge.”

Haryanto made his F1 race debut with Manor at the beginning of the season. He achieved a best result of 15th place in Monaco.

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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21 comments on “Haryanto confirmed as Manor reserve driver”

  1. no longer a race driver in 2016 due to lack of funds – the first time this has been so explicitly stated in my memory. Even when Maldonado was dropped they didn’t talk about the cashflow. Honestly what a terrible contract must have been made for him, and it’s almost just robbery that he got money for it from the government… meanwhile motorsport isn’t even recognised as a topsport in Belgium and Vandoorne can kick himself for not getting any support out of Belgium.

    1. short memories @xtwl!

    2. Agreed, @xtwl. Surely he won’t get any support from the right-wing government. Also, Indonesian population is 23 times the Belgian population, a better potential market. And then when you look at the BEL20 for the biggest Belgian companies, I can only see INBEV or Proximus to have a sufficient size to support him, that’s not much.

      Inbev should really support him as the largest beer company in the world but I suspect the arrival of Heineken could be a problem, even with alcohol & drive put aside.

      As for F1 being a top sport in Belgium it’s easier when you’ve got a star in it. The last Belgians were d’Ambrosio and Boutsen … Spa is still a major event though.

      1. @spoutnik
        Don’t forget about Max!!

        1. Err .. isn’t Max Dutch?

          1. His mother is Belgian.

      2. @spoutnik F1 on Spa is our biggest international event, yet how often do you see it being advertised? How often do you see it in the news. On the 24H of Spa podium we had a Belgian on each step, and a Belgian team, last year we had a Belgian team winning it, all of this has never featured in any news broadcast, not even the sport sections. I dare say not 5% of the Belgian population knows what the racing community thinks about Spa, what a piece of history is right in our backyard. Meanwhile this little fella peeing all over the place it our pride?

        1. All they talk about in this stupid country is football and cycling.

          We won a gold medal in cycling and they couldn’t stop talking about it for 5 days…

        2. @xtwl absolutely agreed. It’s a shame, really. Not that we are trying very hard to promote it. I work at the rtbf and I can say a lot of effort and money is put in promoting the sport. The f1 contract is worth about 3million euros and is one of the biggest we have.

          We obtained to be allowed to live stream the races on our website this year when renewing the contract, all in free to air tv. Almost no free tvs do it in the world. We have Vandoorne as a commentator, we try we try :-). If Vandoorne is given a seat I suspect it can change even further. Let’s hope he will make it.

      3. @spoutnik By recognised as top sport I meant to say a college student can be excused for not being present during classes or even exams because he has to swim, play tennis or cycle. His exam will be rescheduled. You cannot if you have a F1 test session on a Thursday though.

    3. I don’t understand why you say it is robbery from his Government? Indonesia recognize the marketing value of F1 and has gotten tonnes of exposure out of the deal. Also seems to me an outsider that they are willing to develop Motorsport and sport in general in their country. Not a bad thing.

  2. I must say that he did better than I had expected, used his advantage of track knowledge at several venues to keep his teammate in check.

    Solid move to keep him in the fold, it shows Manor still try to keep good relations with their drivers even when funds run out, I like that attetude.

    1. Likewise, he didn’t do a bad job at all to be honest. Sometimes beat Wehrlein in qualifying, sometimes beat the Saubers. Seemed to fade away in races where Wehrlein had the edge, but still expected worse from Haryanto.

      1. Fully agree. Given time, he even may become a decent midfield driver like Pedro Diniz became at the end of his career.

  3. “Rio Haryanto will remain with Manor as the team’s reserve driver after losing his race seat at the team”

    I’am guessing that his sponsors have at least paid Manor enough johnny payolas for Rio to remain with the team as a reserve driver.

    1. Or they managed to find a loophole and put him as reserve on his existing contract so they can cash in on yet another contract.

  4. I’m guessing Rossi has quit the reserve drive role then.

  5. Rio for WEC Asian campaign..!!

  6. This looks to me like Manor want to keep him in the fold just in case he can find the funds. He does have the support from a national government, so it wouldn’t be wise to burn bridges just yet. I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw him racing in F1 again later in 2016.

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