F1: Manor boosts engineering strength

The Manor Formula 1 team has ramped up its engineering department with the recent appointment of an experienced hand in Gianluca Pisanello.

Pisanello spent seven years with Toyota Motorsport in the roles of data engineer (race team), test engineer and race engineer before leaving at the end of 2009 in the wake of the team's decision to quit F1 amid the global credit crisis. Pisanello was then taken on by Caterham at the start of its adventure in the sport, working his way up from race engineer to chief engineer, then to head of engineering operations.

With Caterham now defunct, and Manor taking on staff following its return to F1 after being saved from its own potential demise, Pisanello was last month taken on as chief engineer and head of trackside engineering.

"We've been looking for somebody of Gianluca's experience and caliber leaning on the experience because we've a very young engineering squad," team principal John Booth said. "We needed somebody with his depth of experience to lead that squad and teach them.

"We had a pretty good structure beforehand. Dave [Greenwood] left us in good shape as far as procedures and things were concerned. Gianluca obviously has his own ideas, and it's good to have that calming, authoritative voice on the pit wall too. He really helps out there."

With the appointment of Pisanello, there may now be a knock-on effect with further experienced hands also joining Manor, although for the most part Booth is satisfied with the personnel currently in place.

"We're very happy with the young guys we have," added Booth. "We've been very surprised at just how good they are for such little experience, but Gianluca's key role is to grow that team."

Originally on Autosport.com