Max ChiltonMax Chilton

Max Chilton is hoping Marussia can finally break their points duck in Formula One this weekend.

With the team now in their fifth season in the sport, and after 81 races, the Banbury-based marque have yet to trouble the scorers.

In light of the regulation changes for this season, the start of the campaign was thought to be Marussia’s best hope of making the breakthrough.

But all teams have quickly managed to conquer the gremlins that were in evidence in testing and over the first couple of races as 20 of 22 drivers saw the chequered flag last time out in China.

For this weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona, the Marussia cars will be sporting considerable upgrades Chilton would like to believe can propel him into the top 10.

“In the points? It’s going to be hard, but we’ve quite good updates here, so I’d like to think we’ve a better chance than we had in the first few rounds of the year. We’ve got to hope they work,” said Chilton.

“Our car this year is quite impressive. In China I was following the likes of (Felipe) Massa and (Kevin) Magnussen.

“Through the corners I was not losing a huge loss of time on the overall lap.

“We’ve a pretty good car, and these updates should help.”

The fact Chilton could closely match a Williams and a McLaren speaks volumes for Marussia’s progress, even if Chilton did finish an additional lap down on the duo come the conclusion.

“It shows how far we’ve come. This year we’ve made a good step. It’s definitely promising,” Chilton, who has finished all 23 races in which he has so far competed, said.

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