Bianchi: “We’ve made good progress”

Jules Bianchi did not manage to get ahead of the two Caterhams during the qualifying session of the Spanish Grand Prix. Although he was able to get ahead of Charles Pic, the Marussia driver finished just behind Giedo van der Garde’s CT03.

The Frenchman is nevertheless happy with his performance; in fact, during a press conference in the Barcelona paddock, he stated that with the new updates, the Marussia team has made a good step forward: « Rather positive compared to the Bahrain qualifiers, that was the goal, it’s really about making progress compared to there. That’s what we’ve done, I think, because […] we’re very close and competitive compared to the Caterhams, which is quite good. Now, there’s still a lot of work to be done, and we need to keep going like this. We had issues getting the car set up correctly here, so it’s not easy, but it was a good qualifying. »

Even though the Marussia is not yet at the level of the single-seaters of F1 teams that have been around longer than the Russian team, he is happy with the development program in place: « I think we have made a good improvement, we have progressed well but it’s sure that we don’t have the same budget as the other teams, when we bring parts, they are less significant steps. We try to do the best with what we have and for now, I think it’s pretty good. »

The new parts will also be kept on the single-seater for the race, a race during which he hopes to compete with the Caterhams: « I will try to have the best race possible so for us it will be about trying to finish ahead of the cars we’re competing with and for that, we’ll need to have a good start and maintain a good pace in the race. »

Jules Bianchi also stated that the gap between the two types of tires brought by Pirelli – the Mediums and Hards – is more or less 1 second, and he should make 3 pit stops tomorrow during the race.

From our special correspondent in Barcelona