2013 race driver Max Chilton will continue to drive for Marussia in 2014 after official confirmation from the team today. Chilton appeared on the official FIA entry list yesterday before being confirmed this morning.
“You learn such a lot in your debut season, but the second year is when you can really pull all of those new experiences together and show your true potential,” said Chilton. “That has always been the case for me in the junior categories and I’ll be aiming for a similar step in my second year of F1 competition.”
Marussia will retain the same driver line-up as it had last year, following Bianchi’s resigning last year. The only other team to have kept both of it’s drivers from last year are Mercedes, as every other team has at least one new driver.
Team principal John Booth said: “In view of next year’s regulation changes, continuity is key, so it is highly beneficial to our technical team that we retain the same driver line-up moving forward.”
“Max had an impressive debut season last year and, of course, achieved a new rookie record for finishing all 19 races. He can be justifiably proud of the progress he made through the course of 2013. With our race driver line-up complete we can now focus all of our attentions on our 2014 car and moving the Marussia F1 team to the next level.”
Following today’s announcement, only two seats remain on the grid for the season which gets underway in March at the Australian Grand Prix. These two seats belong to Caterham, who said today that they expect to have both of their drivers announced prior to the first pre-season test on January 28th at Jerez.
Heikki Kovalainen remains one of the highest candidates to take a seat, along with 2013 drivers Charles Pic and Giedo van der Garde. GP2 driver Marcus Ericsson is also on the shortlist.
By Jordan Groves Formula 1 correspondent for RTR Sports Marketing Follow Jordan on twitter at www.twitter.com/jgroves1996
