MAX CHILTON says it was good to demonstrate his outright pace in Barcelona, even though a few issues saw him finish down in 19th.
A hard fought race yielded little reward for Chilton and his Marussia team-mate Jules Bianchi, who finished one place ahead of him in 18th.
Having qualified in 21st - ahead of Caterham driver Charles Pic - Chilton got off to a poor start and the Reigate man's woes were compounded by a problem during one of this three pit stops.
He drove a hard race to try to recover from his setbacks and for much of the race his lap times were equal to those of his team-mate, who had to change his pitstop tally due to an early clip on his front wing.
However, the two Marussias finished closely together in 18th and 19th, giving the team little reward for their efforts in the first race of the European section of the campaign.
And Chilton had mixed feelings about the weekend as a whole.
He said: "It was disappointing to have such a problematic start to the race and then we had the pit stop issue, which was a further setback.
"What is encouraging is my lap time in free air today, which I'm pretty pleased with, and it's good to be able to demonstrate more of my outright pace than I've been able to over the past few races."
And Chilton says he is hopeful of a bright future in his Marussia with the legendary Monaco street circuit up next.
He said: "If we can get on top of some of these problems we can really start to come into our own a bit more.
"The pace is there so we should be able to get back to closing the gap to the midfield.
"Next it's one of my favourite races and I'll be doing everything I can to prepare for my first time out in a Formula 1 car there.
"Hopefully we can enjoy a better reward for our efforts."
