Marussia's Charles Pic keen to build on impressive start to his Formula 1 career

The Frenchman outqualified Marussia team-mate Timo Glock for the second race in a row in Spain. He has also shown strong race pace, impressing the team with his speed on high fuel-loads in particular, despite having no significant experience of the 2012 Marussia before the season-opening Australian Grand Prix.

"It's only my fifth race so I still have many things to learn," Pic told AUTOSPORT. "But even though I feel better and better with each race, I still have many areas to work on and improve on.

"I think that we can be better in qualifying. Our race pace has been good, especially in Bahrain, so we will have to see how we will be [in Spain]."

Despite the fact that Marussia's lack of competitiveness means that his performances largely go unnoticed, Pic is confident that the team has recognised his progress.

The Frenchman has won races in every category he has competed regularly in prior to F1 but despite being used to victories in GP2, Formula Renault 3.5, Formula Renault and Formula Campus he is not struggling to adapt to live at the back of the grid.

"You try to optimise the car you have and give your best," said Pic. "This is no different to other categories in that regard.

"The difference is that there is a much bigger gap between the cars in Formula 1 so even if on some weekends you are doing a very good job, it maybe isn't shown by the result. But the team can see it, which is the most important thing for me.

"I know that my engineer is pretty happy and team is happy, even though I still need to improve. But overall what I've done in the first races is positive."