MOTORSPORT: Indonesia's big play for GP driver

Indonesia is prepared to pay more than A$1 million per grand prix to have a driver in Formula 1’s worst team in next year’s world championship starting in Melbourne in mid-March.

Rio Haryanto, who will be 23 by then, won three races in the GP2 series this year with Spanish team Campos and already has an F1 ‘super licence’.

He has done three tests (the first of them at 17 years of age) with the F1 team that began as Virgin Racing and became Manor, then Marussia and is now Manor Marussia.

The team has only once had a car finish in the top 10 of a GP in its six years – that driven to ninth place in 2014 Monaco Grand Prix by Frenchman Jules Bianchi, who died in the middle of this year from head injuries suffered in last year’s Japanese GP.

Indonesia’s youth and sports minister Imam Nahrawi told Manor Marussia owner, London-based Irish energy tycoon Stephen Fitzpatrick, in a recent letter that the country would “guarantee a payment of €15 million” (A$22.8 million) for Haryanto to compete in 2016’s world championship of up to 21 GPs with his team.

The Jakarta Post newspaper reported at the weekend that Nahrawi is now lobbying Indonesian businesses and state-owned enterprises to financially assist Haryanto in getting the drive, which would alleviate the country’s taxpayers of having to fulfil the guarantee.

Haryanto could count on €5 million from state-owned oil and gas company Pertamina, the paper said, but it added that there was a mid-January deadline on providing the full amount.

International news agency Reuters quoted Nahrawi saying after a meeting with a colleague, state-owned enterprises minister Rini Soemarno: “I need to find a perfect formula for Rio’s financial support to meet Manor team’s requirement.”

While Indonesia is intent on getting Haryanto into F1, and getting global exposure through its association with him and Manor Marussia, the amount it is prepared to pay will still be only about a third of that Venezuelan oil company PDVSA stumps up annually for Pastor Maldonado’s seat with the Lotus team, recently reacquired by French manufacturer Renault.

Haryanto, who briefly raced in Formula 3 in Australia in 2009, is the only Indonesian to come close to breaking into F1 since Ananda Mikola raced in the International Formula 3000 Championship in 2000-01, when Australia’s Mark Webber was also in that series.

Manor Marussia is the only team, including America’s new Ferrari-powered Haas outfit, not to have named its drivers for the new season beginning at the Australian GP on March 18-20.

Fitzpatrick, founder of Britain’s OVO Energy company, rescued Marussia from administration early this year after another team that entered the sport in 2010, Caterham, collapsed without ever having scored a world championship point.

Prizemoney from the two points Bianchi scored in Monaco last year was vital in Fitzpatrick’s rescue.

Manor Marussia’s drivers this year were Brit Will Stevens, Spaniard Roberto Merhi and – late in the season – American, Alexander Rossi.

The team used Ferrari engines this year but has done a deal for the benchmark Mercedes power units next season and has forged a technical partnership with the Williams team, which already has Mercedes power.

Having recently lost its two top managers, John Booth and Graham Lowdon, Manor Marussia has hired New Zealander Dave Ryan as its new sporting director.

Ryan worked for more than 30 years at McLaren, the second-most successful team in F1 history, but was forced out of GP racing in April 2009 amid an investigation into comments made by now-triple world champion driver Lewis Hamilton to stewards at that year’s Australian GP.

Ryan has since run McLaren sports cars for the Von Ryan Racing squad in Europe’s Blancpain GT series, with his V8 Supercar star countryman Shane Van Gisbergen as an occasional driver.

2016 Formula 1 driver line-up
Mercedes – Lewis Hamilton (Great Britain), Nico Rosberg (Germany)
Ferrari – Sebastian Vettel (Germany), Kimi Raikkonen (Finland)
Williams – Felipe Massa (Brazil), Valtteri Bottas (Finland)
Red Bull – Daniel Ricciardo (Australia), Daniil Kyvat (Russia)
Force India – Nico Hulkenberg (Germany), Sergio Perez (Mexico)
Renault – Pastor Maldonado (Venezuela), Jolyon Palmer (GB)
Toro Rosso – Max Verstappen (Netherlands), Carlos Sainz Junior (Spain)
Sauber – Felipe Nasr (Brazil), Marcus Ericsson (Sweden)
McLaren – Fernando Alonso (Spain), Jenson Button (GB)
Manor Marussia – to be announced
Haas – Romain Grosjean (France), Esteban Gutierrez (Mexico).

Swiss driver Sebastien Buemi gave the Renault e.Dams team its second victory in three races of the second season of Formula E at Uruguay’s Punta del Este street circuit at the weekend.

Runner-up to Brazilian Nelson Piquet Junior in the category’s first season, Buemi came from fifth on the grid on Saturday and took the chequered flag ahead of another Brazilian Lucas di Grassi, of Audi-linked German team Abt.

Third and fourth were Belgian Jerome D’Ambrosio and another Swiss driver, Loic Duval, who had started from the front row for the Dragon Racing of American Jay Penske, a son of iconic Indy, NASCAR and now V8 Supercar team owner Roger ‘The Captain’ Penske.

Fifth was Buemi’s teammate Nicolas Prost, son of France’s four-time F1 world champion Alain Prost, who is the team principal of Renault e.Dams.

Team China’s reigning champion Piquet slid sideways at a chicane late in the race, clouted barriers and finds himself only 16th in the points this season.

Shortly before crashing Piquet and Frenchman Jean-Eric Vergne made light contact.

Canada’s 1997 F1 world champion Jacques Villeneuve did not race in Uruguay after crashing in qualifying and has no points after three events.

The next Formula E round is in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on February 6, with Buemi holding a one-point lead over di Grassi and D’Ambrosio a distant third, and Renault e.Dams two points clear of Abt and Dragon third.