Caterham F1 Team
Giedo van der Garde says the Monaco Grand Prix could provide Caterham with a chance of getting close to the top 10.
Caterham is currently behind Marussia in the Constructors Championship but a twelfth place finish for either Van der Garde or Charles Pic in Monte Carlo would move the team ahead of their rivals.
"Monaco’s also a place where the smaller teams, like us, can do something special. It’s a shorter lap than many of the other tracks we race on, and everyone has to run as much downforce as possible, so outright speed isn’t the key," he said.
"You need good traction to really attack the exits of the corners, and the package we introduced in Spain had exactly that, so what we want to do is build on the progress we made in Spain, show a bit more of our potential, and with a bit of luck we can come close to the top 10."
"It's going to be hard to tell if our car will work well there. Last year the team had quite good results so there is good hope. I think the driver is very important there to have a good flow, and we'll see what we can do."
Team-mate Pic is hopeful that Caterham can continue their upward momentum.
"You can hope that it can be a good chance for you to finish in a good position, but with such a tight circuit and so many chances for something to happen it’s something we can’t control so we have to be focused on optimising the car, extracting 100 per cent for qualifying and then focusing on the race," said the Frenchman.
"We’ll have to make sure we go the right way on tyre choice and strategy, and then we’ll see. We’ve definitely been improving over the last couple of races, so the aim is to carry that through to Monaco."
