Although the team had all sorts of problems during their first pre-season test, Lucas di Grassi is confident Virgin will be able to put in a solid showing in Bahrain.
Di Grassi and team-mate Timo Glock spent only a few hours on the track on the opening three days in Jerez due to the late arrival of parts and poor weather.
However, things were a lot better on Saturday and di Grassi was able to put in 63 laps.
The new season is now less than a month away, but the rookie insists they'll be able to put in a good showing at the Bahrain Grand Prix.
"If you consider that the other guys have been doing this for 20 years and they've had at least six days of testing - they had three days at Valencia last week plus four days here," he told Autosport. "And this is our first day with a car we started building eight months ago. I think we have a lot of room for improvement in Bahrain in many areas.
"So I was very pleased with what I felt of the car today, and also the feedback from the engineers and how the team worked - it's a new team, some people are used to F1, some are not. Now the team is starting to get together and everything is starting to be more fluid and things are starting to work better.
"So I'll quite happy with this first run for our car and definitely things are going to get better for Bahrain."
Despite their woes in Jerez, di Grassi believes there isn't any major problem with the car.
"I think the most important thing with the car is that there is no chronic problem," he added. "There is no project mistake or anything. The car is doing well. It's behaving as a Formula 1 car, and now we just need to improve its performance and reliability."
