Marussia team principal John Booth hailed the team's start to the season after the first day of practice in Australia.
After a trouble-free first day of practice Jules Bianchi was half a second quicker than the team's closest rivals Caterham and 0.3s off the next car, Valtteri Bottas's Williams.
'We're very pleased with our opening day here in Melbourne,' said Booth, 'it really couldn't have gone any better for us with our new car, two new drivers and some good signs in terms of performance and reliability.'
'We came here with a few concerns about how things were going to play out with the tyres, but we also knew that the less abrasive track surface and high ambient temperatures would mitigate many of the issues we experienced in testing. Degradation will remain a challenge though and we can expect to see some interesting racing as a consequence of that, which is of course a good thing.'
Booth cautioned that the team couldn't take its improved pace for granted just yet: 'We're feeling positive but at this stage we're not treating this as anything other than a good first day and we won't have a true picture until we've completed our first qualifying and then have a race distance under our belts.
'What I will say though is that the Team have got us off to a good start here and the drivers have done a very solid job, so there's a nice feeling as we head into our first Grand Prix of the new season. We've done all our homework today and put the drivers in a good situation to make the most of their first Grand Prix weekend, so we will see what tomorrow brings now.'
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Image © Marussia
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