NOVEMBER 25, 2008

Manwaring moves to Mallock

Rupert Manwaring, who for many years was involved with various Formula 1 teams, has departed Lola Cars International and will become the new sponsorship and marketing director of the RML Group. Manwaring started his racing career with the Surtees F1 team at the age of 21 and then moived to Brabham for six years, where he became assistant team manager to Herbie Blash. After brief spells with the Kraco Indycar team and with the Haas Lola FORCE team he joined Team Lotus and in 1989 became the team manager. A year later he was recruited by Tyrrell and he then spent four years as team manager before being appointed head of the Tyrrell marketing department in 1995. After the team was sold to British Ametrican Tobacco Manwaring joined Harvey Postlethwaite's Honda Racing Developments operation and ran the operation after Postlethwaite's death. He then tried to buy control of the Arrows team before joining forces with Paul Stoddart at Minardi in 2001. At the end of 2002 he became managing-director of Lola.

The RML Group grew out of the racing activities of the Mallock Family, dating back as far as 1936 when Major Arthur Mallock raced his first Austin 7-based special. The family was famous in the 1960s and 1970s for its Clubmans cars. In the 1980s Ray Mallock took control of the firm which today runs the Chevrolet World Touring Car programme for GM, designing, building, developing, and race the Lacetti model. In sports car racing the firm has run MG chassis in recent years but is now switching to Mazdas, while also building Opel Corsa Super 1600 rally cars and developing the Mercedes-McLaren SLR 722 GT for racing.