• Marussia news

Marussia hopes to continue momentum with 'significant' China updates

Marussia has been comfortably ahead of Caterham so far this season © Sutton Images

Enlarge

Related Links

• Drivers:
• John Booth

• Teams:
• Manor

Marussia team principal John Booth says the team will have some "significant" upgrades at the Chinese Grand Prix.

Having seen its pre-season overshadowed by the uncertainty over its driver line-up, Marussia was one of the surprise packages of the opening two races by comfortably beating Caterham in both races. Jules Bianchi came within 0.3s of a place in Q2 on merit in Malaysia and Booth says the team will be looking to continuously update its car to keep up the pressure on the midfield.

"The past couple of weeks have provided a good break for the race team after a fairly intensive period through pre-season testing and the opening two long-haul races," Booth said. "After such a positive start to the season though, I think we are all keen to get back to the racing. The cars were freighted directly to China, so while we would not call the upgrades we have for this race comprehensive, they are still significant.

"We will be running some new suspension parts that we proved out in testing but delayed until we had some further race distance experience with the MR02. We also have some new front and rear brake ducts. The bigger push will come for Europe, but for now it's good to be bringing new incremental updates to the car to maintain our positive trajectory.

"The drivers have spent some time in the simulator during the break and generally they are feeling much better prepared for the next phase of the season."

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.