Bianchi will work to compete with the Caterham

Formula 1 drivers will have new tires starting this weekend in Budapest, and Jules Bianchi will get to try them tomorrow during the first free practice session because he didn’t really have the chance to use them at Silverstone, having only tested the hard compounds while Pirelli has brought the medium and soft ones to Hungary.

« They are a little slower for me but much more consistent, I could only test the hards because when I put on the mediums I had a suspension problem and I didn’t test the softs. So that’s the only difference we’ve seen. We didn’t do a race simulation, we did fairly short stints, » the Frenchman disclosed during a press briefing.

The Marussia driver should be able to clearly understand the difference between the two types of tires since his car is not evolving much at the moment: « In the last two/three races, we haven’t evolved much, we’ve evolved a little bit each time but they weren’t big steps, but since the others have also evolved, perhaps a little more than us, it wasn’t too noticeable. For the upcoming races, I think the next big evolution will be at Spa and I think it will be the last one and in principle, we should see a better improvement. »

Unable to assess new developments, Bianchi focuses on his driving and skills with the aim to improve as a driver: « [The goal is to] try to get the most out of the car, continue to improve on tire degradation. Personally, it’s been a few races that I feel 100% with the car. As for being at my maximum, I don’t know, one can always improve, so I certainly still have room for growth. »

Regularly battling with the Caterhams since the beginning of the season, this hasn’t been much the case in the last few races, but the Nice-born driver is convinced he can compete against Pic and van der Garde’s CT03 this weekend: « At Silverstone, Caterham was out of reach, Charles was faster. Then at the Nürburgring, we came back a little; in the race it was going pretty well until I broke the engine. Here, I don’t know yet what it’s going to be like; I think we’re rather close, probably behind in my opinion, but quite close, so we’ll try to get ahead. »

He will still have to monitor an important factor, the heat, which has not been in Marussia’s favor so far, but he is counting on hard work to eliminate this weakness: « The heat not really [it’s not going to help us] because we saw in Bahrain that with slightly warmer conditions we gained a bit more time. But in the end, it’s the same for everyone, so we have to try to work as best as we can tomorrow to solve the small issues we have with the heat, and it should be fine. »

From our special correspondent at the Hungaroring