Teenager Merhi is fourth in the driver's championship after taking away an excellent fifth place finish during the first race of the weekend.

The Dinnington-based squad also moved into fourth place in the entrant standings.

Not for the first time, qualifying turned into something of a lottery, with the session starting wet and then progressively drying towards the end.

The top grid slots went to those drivers in the right place at the right time, but unfortunately Manor's trio weren't among the fortunate ones.

Merhi lined up 12th on the grid for the opening race on the Saturday, and he enjoyed a superb first lap by climbing into the top seven before setting about trying to find a way past Dutchman Henkie Waldschmidt.

On lap eight, the Manor ace moved ahead and into the top six. Esteban Gutierrez was the Spaniard's next target and he passed him for fourth on lap 13.

The good move proved short-lived though, when Merhi ran too deep into the first hairpin at the start of the 14th tour and Gutierrez nipped back ahead to demote the Manor man a place.

Further behind, teammates Pedro Enrique and Cesar Ramos were both having an impressive race after climbing up the order very well from 23rd and 26th on the grid respectively.

On lap 19, heavy rain hit the Norisring which meant red flags were shown and the race was halted with Mehri in fifth.

Each car lined up on the grid to have tyres changed from slicks to treaded wet-weather rubber but by the time the race got back under way, the scheduled time limit had surpassed.