Racing Point: “You aren’t going to start looking at the slowest car on the grid"

F1 News

20 February 2020 at 10:11
  • Bevan Youl

Racing Point have said that “you aren’t going to start looking at the slowest car on the grid” after they have been at the centre of controversy about their cars similarity to Mercedes’ 2019 W10.

One the first day of pre-season testing for the 2020 Formula 1 season Racing Point were the most talked about after comparisons were drawn between their new car and Mercedes’ championship 2019 winning W10.
 
Sergio Perez managed to finish third in the times just shy of the laps that the Silver Arrows set to finish one and two.
 
But technical director Andy Green had stated that they are Racing Point’s designs that have taken “inspiration” from Mercedes, calling it a “big risk”.
 
"The inspiration is from the quickest car from last year," Green told Autosport. "That's where our inspiration came from. It's [a question of] why wouldn't we?
 
"We're in a position where we're using their [2019] gearbox, we've got the same power unit, and the gearbox is designed for suspension to go with a certain aerodynamic philosophy.
 
"We had a car that was running around seventh in the championship. And we've got one more year of these regulations, and the development that we were seeing with the high rake car to me just wasn't going to deliver, and it was worth taking a risk.
 
"And it is a big risk. We tore up what we did before, fresh piece of paper, where are we going to start?
 
"Well, you aren't going to start looking at the slowest car on the grid are you? You're going to start looking at the fastest car, and that's where we started.
 
"If it works, it works. If it doesn't, we've lost one year, but I don't think we would have lost anything relative to not doing it. The downside of not doing it was much greater."