Saturday: Frustration in the Air for the Marussia Team
Even though few hopes could be placed on these Japanese Grand Prix Qualifiers, Jules Bianchi and Max Chilton both emerged disappointed from their respective sessions, and were outpaced by Marcus Ericsson's Caterham.
Jules Bianchi (No. 17) – 20th and 20th [18th on the grid]
In the mini-championship at the back of the grid between Marussia and Caterham, the driver from Nice was, for once, outpaced by Marcus Ericsson. However, the final result was hampered by a strategic error. He explained the origin of this error in the interview area:
This is a frustrating result for us today. I’m happy with the laps I was able to complete, but we didn’t accomplish our plan, which was to do three stints during the Qualifying session, and we were caught out by the weather, which prevented us from beating Ericsson’s Caterham. We are not where we want to be, but we haven’t brought any developments to the car for a long time, whereas they (Caterham) have taken a step forward, which is more noticeable on this track.
Despite this slight decline in competitiveness marked by this session, the Tricolore remains confident in an advantageous performance for tomorrow and the race, which will undoubtedly be held under difficult weather conditions.
It’s clearly a disappointment, but as always, we will focus on what we can do for tomorrow and the race, because the race will certainly be interesting for us, one way or another.
Max Chilton (No. 4) – 22nd and 22nd [20th on the grid]
On his side, the English driver of the second Marussia expressed his frustration with himself to the journalists present:
“I’m furious with myself,” declared Max Chilton. “I was 4 tenths ahead before the last sector of my final flying lap, and it could have been very close between the other cars in my times (Marcus Ericcson, Jules Bianchi, Kamui Kobayashi editor’s note). Unfortunately, I lost the rear of my car at the entrance to Spoon Curve (turn 13), which wiped out all my chances.”
Like his teammate, Max Chilton doesn’t let himself get down, especially with the idea of a completely disjointed race scenario:
I like to think that we can climb higher in the rankings tomorrow, but at this stage of the weekend, the race remains very difficult to predict, as we don’t know how much the weather factor will come into play. Whatever happens, I think we can move forward. The result is disappointing for today, but we will do our best tomorrow.
