Roberto Merhi announced as second Manor driver

The Manor F1 Team has announced today that they have signed 23 year old Spanish driver Roberto Merhi as their second driver alongside Will Stevens for this weekend's Australian Grand Prix. Merhi won the Formula 3 Euro Series Championship in 2011 and finished third in the Formula Renault 3.5 series last year behind Carlos Sainz Jr. and Pierre Gasly. Merhi also drove for Caterham in the first Friday practice session of the Italian, Japanese, and Russian Grand Prix last year in which he was faster than team mate Marcus Ericsson in two of the sessions.

Merhi said, "I am incredibly excited to be making my Formula 1 debut in Melbourne this weekend. It is a big responsibility but I feel ready to make this step in my career and to show that I can make an important contribution to developing a team."

Manor has also confirmed that Jordan King will be the team's development driver this year. King is the 2013 British Formula 3 champion and finished seventh in the FIA European Formula 3 championship last year. King had signed with Racing Engineering to drive in the GP2 series this year as team mates with Alexander Rossi.