Giedo van der Garde believes that Caterham still has room for improvement despite surpassing Marussia in the last couple of races to move off the back of the grid.
The battle at the back has been intense of late, with Marussia’s charge being led by Jules Bianchi and the Anglo-Russian team appeared to have the upper hand following the opening three races of the season. However, a rejuvenated Caterham has enjoyed a healthy lead over Marussia in the past two races, but van der Garde believes that there is still scope for improvement.
“There is still some scope, absolutely, so we have to see what we have to do and how we can fix it because at the moment it is not there completely,” van der Garde explained to ESPNF1.
“I think to be honest we will make another step during the season and hopefully it will be as good as this one.”
The upgrades brought to the last two races have been highly effective, with Charles Pic challenging Williams’ Valtteri Bottas last time out in Spain and he finished ahead of Esteban Gutierrez at the Bahrain Grand Prix. van der Garde is sure that the team can squeeze even more pace out of the CT-03, which appears to have finally come good.
“But still I think we have to optimise this and then we will have more potential and we will be faster, but the team is pushing hard so that is why I’m very happy with it.”
Like Caterham, Marussia will be pushing to finish P10 in the constructors’ championship, which this season has extra importance after Bernie Ecclestone revealed earlier this year that the team finishing 11th would not receive any prize money.
ESPN
Circuito Permanente de Jerez – February 5 - Giedo: 1:21.915 - 64 laps
