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Marussia sporting director Graeme Lowdon has said that the team feared a repeat of 2012 during the Brazilian Grand Prix where they secured the tenth place in the standings due to Caterham’s failure to finish in 13th position.
“It is not necessarily nerves, it is just a question of having appreciation of what can happen because we worked so hard this year, but we also worked hard last year,” Lowdon told AUTOSPORT.
Marussia missed out on the tenth place last year for just five laps in a rainy last race. And Lowden added that the team learnt from their experience.
“Five laps from the end last year we lost it, and that was quite difficult because it meant there was no sporting reward for all of the effort. It was great this year for all the guys both here and back at Banbury to finally see the progress,” he said.
However, Lowden said that the team’s performance throughout the year has shown that they need to produce faster cars for staying in the game.
“We know that the raw speed was not in the car and it takes time and a lot of money to get there, but we are confident we will get there. We have been able to demonstrate that we can run a really good race team and I take my hat off to our guys in terms of their approach to strategy and team work. For example, their pit stops were excellent, and we beat a lot of teams who have been in this game a lot longer,” he said.
“It all bodes well, and we are happy with the way the 2014 programme is going. That gives us some confidence. The key thing to take home from here is progress and that has been elusive up to now. There is no change in the amount of work going in, as that has been maximum since we started. But now there is a little bit of reward there as well and that is really nice for everyone,” he added.
