Jules Bianchi is 'the real deal'

Q. At the start of the season, Jules was thrown in at the deep end with only two days of testing in the car, albeit with a bit of prior experience with Ferrari and Force India to fall back on. How have you seen his learning curve throughout the year?

Davison: He stepped into the team straight away and within two days in the car he was well up to speed and already being impressive. His feedback straight away was very, very good and you could tell that he had some experience already. He got to grips with the car very quickly and has just moved on from there. He loves to look at the data and to talk about the car - and he's bringing that on as well, which is helping his driving. He is very impressive.

Q. The driver isn't there to engineer the car but he does need to be able to communicate what the car is doing. How is he doing on that score?

Davison: He has got a very good baseline understanding and a very good balance. He doesn't try to engineer the car, he tells us what's wrong and lets us deal with it but he understands what changes we are making and why we are doing them.

So he avoids sending you down blind alleys like some drivers?

Davison: Yes. You get more feedback from him so he tells you what's wrong rather than just saying he needs something fixed when we don't know what's going on with the car.

Q. When he came in late, that must be quite worrying for you as a race engineer. But he jumped in and was fairly quick straight away, which must have been a relief?

Bianchi has impressed the team with his speed © LAT

Davison: Yeah, it was. I remember doing the first seat fit at 11 at night at Barcelona thinking, 'this will be interesting tomorrow', but then on the installation lap he did all the procedures correctly. You could tell straight away that he was going to be good.

Q. What have you seen from him in terms of qualifying pace?

Davison: It was there from the off. If you look at the first half of the season, the number of green [personal best] qualifying sectors he has put together in the second run in qualifying is better than any driver I've seen for us before.

Q. Early on, there where times where tyre management was a problem, but he seems to have got on top of that quickly?

Davison: Yes. It's always hard for a racing driver when you tell them not to drive flat out. It's very alien for Jules not to be going flat out within a target of some sort to not destroy his tyres. But he does it and he has got better at feeling how much life is left. It's good that he finds it quite alien to tyre manage because it shows he's a true racer.

Q. Is he having to work a bit to excel in the quicker corners where you really have to work with the aero?

Davison: He's generally very good in high-speed corners because he's got really big cahunas! Adapting the driving style to different circuit conditions is one area - if the track is very hot or it's low-grip conditions. At each circuit we go to he's finding his feet more.

Q. He has Ferrari affiliations and could have a future there. Can you see the signs this is a guy with that kind of potential?

Davison: Yes, you can tell with everything he does, how he is inside and outside of the car, that he is the real deal. He concentrates on what is important when he's out of the car to be sure that he's in the best position he can be in, so he's focused. That's how you can tell he's the real deal straight away,

Q. So he buys into the need for working hard?

Davison: Yes, absolutely. But he has a good balance and knows when it's time to accept he's said everything he needs to say, is happy he's debriefed and makes sure he gets the rest he needs to be on form the next day and lets the team deal with the rest. He doesn't stay with us all night, but doesn't just get out of the car and walk out.

Marussia has already confirmed Bianchi for 2014 © LAT

Q. Has there been a standout performance?

Davison: Yes, it happened very early on in qualifying in Malaysia. That's the best qualifying lap I have ever seen in one of our cars. He nailed that lap. It was a very special lap for me, it was the real standout And he did it so early on, only having done one race.

That was his first dry qualifying as well because Australia was wet. To put that together in his first dry qualifying was very impressive.

Q. How about a standout race performance?

Davison: In Barcelona, unfortunately, he knocked his front wing off on the first lap and was behind everyone. But the pace he was doing in the first stint was incredible. We were thinking he was going to run out of tyres in the next five laps but he didn't, he just pushed and pushed and pushed like in qualifying and caught everybody very quickly. He had a bit of red mist but used it productively and got us right back on track.

Q. He even got held up by Vettel at a point thanks to the way the tyre strategies played out...

Davison: That was a strange moment. I remember him asking, 'What should I do here? Should I overtake him?' and we said, 'Yeah, go for it!'

Q. What's he like to work with on a personal level?

Davison: He's great. Honestly, he is the best driver I have worked with in 10 years just in terms of how he is. He is calm, happy to have a joke when the time is right, he switches on when he needs to and he's just very good to have around. He motivates the whole team. I can't fault him. I'm very pleased he is staying.