When Marussia’s original second driver, Luiz Razia couldn’t raise the funds from his backers (or they didn’t deliver) the team had to rapidly sign up someone else to partner Max Chilton. The man to step up was Force India’s reserve driver Jules Bianchi, a rookie who was highly tipped to do very well in F1.
And oh my, did he do well! Yes, yes it’s just one race but he only had good things to say about his Marussia car and it was evident that he was more than comfortable taking it through to 15th place, ahead of the Caterham drivers and his team mate.
Not a bad result, especially when you consider the lack of running he had before heading downunder. It’s not just the result that’s impressive either – did you know that he also had the 11th fastest lap of the whole race, just 0.045s slower than Sebastian Vettel’s quickest time…

Yes, Jules Bianchi’s best lap was only 0.045s slower than Sebastian Vettel’s best.
Blimey.
This man definitely deserves to be one our ‘Hot Rods’ from the Australian Grand Prix – well done sir!
For those interested, here’s the full list of fastest laps from Sunday’s race:
Rank | Driver | Fastest Lap | Diff | Lap |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Kimi Raikkonen | 1'29.274 | 56 | |
2 | Jean-Eric Vergne | 1'29.498 | 0.224 | 50 |
3 | Fernando Alonso | 1'29.560 | 0.286 | 53 |
4 | Mark Webber | 1'29.732 | 0.458 | 45 |
5 | Lewis Hamilton | 1'29.759 | 0.485 | 45 |
6 | Sergio Perez | 1'29.926 | 0.652 | 46 |
7 | Jenson Button | 1'30.198 | 0.924 | 41 |
8 | Felipe Massa | 1'30.239 | 0.965 | 38 |
9 | Romain Grosjean | 1'30.395 | 1.121 | 41 |
10 | Sebastian Vettel | 1'30.409 | 1.135 | 42 |
11 | Jules Bianchi | 1'30.454 | 1.18 | 52 |
12 | Valtteri Bottas | 1'30.652 | 1.378 | 42 |
13 | Adrian Sutil | 1'30.710 | 1.436 | 49 |
14 | Daniel Ricciardo | 1'30.881 | 1.607 | 33 |
15 | Paul Di Resta | 1'30.894 | 1.62 | 56 |
16 | E.Gutierrez | 1'31.415 | 2.141 | 32 |
17 | Max Chilton | 1'32.210 | 2.936 | 49 |
18 | Nico Rosberg | 1'32.259 | 2.985 | 18 |
19 | Charles Pic | 1'32.261 | 2.987 | 55 |
20 | G.van der Garde | 1'32.636 | 3.362 | 39 |
21 | Pastor Maldonado | 1'32.915 | 3.641 | 12 |
22 | Nico Hulkenberg | - | - | - |