Pascal Wehrlein claims there is more potential to unlock from his Manor MRT05 package after starring in Bahrain two weeks ago.
The German rookie featured amongst the standout performers under the floodlights, outqualifying both Renaults and Saubers before finishing 13th and ahead the two Force Indias in the race.
Manor has undergone a major reshuffle over the winter, which included a switch to Mercedes power, a radical management and driver line-up overhaul, a change of name and rebranding, and most importantly the introduction of a new car for the time in two years.
After a somewhat disappointing showing in Australia, the small British outfit showed in Bahrain that it was no longer in F1 just to make up the numbers.
“From start to finish it was a really positive race for me; so much better than Melbourne,” Wehrlein said. “We qualified well, which helped, but to be mixing it with some of the bigger boys - beating them even - was really exciting.
“We’ve only just begun to extract some of the potential from the car so it was a good sign that there’s even more to come.
“The car was really quick on the straights and there are a couple of good ones here at Shanghai.”
Unlike his team-mate Rio Haryanto, Werhlein has never competed at the Chinese Grand Prix venue but the 2015 DTM champion won’t let this situation faze him as he prepares for round three of this year’s F1 championship.
“It’s great fun getting to grips with a new circuit and once you’ve done a few laps, it’s not such a big issue, as long as the weather is on your side so you can build momentum.
“I walked the track last year with Mercedes and obviously I’ve prepared on the simulator, so I just want to get stuck into FP1 now and see how our package performs here.
“What we know from Bahrain though is that there’s some more work to do to get the best from the car throughout the lap. There is still a lot we can do to continue improving the set-up and here we need a good compromise from straights to turns. It’s quite a challenging track so I’m looking forward to getting started.”
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