New car would put Manor ’closer’ to McLaren - Merhi

Manor might have points on the board if it was powered by an up-to-date engine.

That is the view of Spanish team driver Roberto Merhi, as he hailed his half-second qualifying advantage over teammate Will Stevens in Hungary.

Earlier, it was suggested Merhi might be on the verge of losing his race seat, as the apparently better-funded Fabio Leimer lines up to oust him.

"I suppose that if they (the team) had some doubt, the qualifying lap here might have removed that," he smiled to the Spanish daily AS.

"Fabio is a good driver, he has a lot of experience in GP2 cars that are not much slower here than F1, but I don’t think he did anything out of this world," Merhi insisted.

As for Manor’s performance, the team is now alone in the constructors’ standings with a zero score, but only 5 points ahead is the struggling grandee McLaren-Honda.

Asked if a 2015 Manor and up-to-date Ferrari engine might have put the team ahead of McLaren by now, Merhi answered: "We would be closer.

"I don’t know if we’d be ahead, that’s too easy to say, but it is true that we might already have scored (points) because there have been races that could have favoured us with the circumstances," he said.