F1 2013 - Mid-Season Report

Marussia (0 Points)

Again, with the smaller teams it€™s very hard to gauge exactly where each driver is as various internal and external influences can affect a drivers race dramatically and we as viewers rarely get to see it. One certainty is that as the season has progressed Marussia have fallen further and further away from the pace of Caterham and are now the slowest team on the grid. However, one crucial difference is that due to Jules Bianchi€™s 13th place in Malaysia, Marussia lie 10th in the constructor€™s championship ahead of Caterham. With 10th place being the last place to receive price money, it will be interesting to see who comes out on top.

Jules Bianchi €“ 8 (0 Points)

Unlucky not to have been driving for Force India this season, he has found his way at the bottom of the grid driving for Marussia. Apart from a pretty sloppy weekend at Monaco, Bianchi has been very impressive, consistently beating his team mate and fighting with the Caterham, something the car shouldn€™t be doing. One thing is clear; Jules Bianchi is a real talent and has a very promising career ahead of him. Emerging from the youth development of Ferrari, it seems highly probable that his future career in F1 will be with the Italian team. So far he has outperformed the car on numerous occasions and nothing suggests that he cannot cope with the pressures involved. Due to the relatively lack of pace of the Marussia, the 2nd half of the season seems likely to focus on the inter-team battle and how Bianchi performs. In the 1st half of the season he has outqualified Chilton 10-0 and has finished ahead of Chilton at every race he has finished. Impressive.

Max Chilton €“ 6 (0 Points)

At the beginning of the season, Chilton really struggled to keep pace with Bianchi but has steadily gotten closer as the season has progressed, averaging around 0.3/0.4 seconds behind in qualifying compared with an average of around a full second at the beginning. In terms of race pace, again Max has been on the backfoot in comparison to team mate Bianchi, but again he is slowly moving himself closer to the talented Frenchman. So far, Chilton hasn€™t finished ahead of his team mate when both cars have finished the race. Max will be hoping to change that quickly. With reports that Marussia will be aiming to keep both drivers next season it will give Chilton to relax and develop slowly, here€™s hoping that the 2nd half of the season is a good one for Max.