Racing Point’s impressive pace during the Styrian Grand Prix has got some people wondering, are they ahead of Red Bull in the pecking order?
After struggling in the wet on Saturday, Sergio Perez stormed through from 17th on the grid to catch Alex Albon for fourth before contact with the Thai driver dropped him to sixth on the final lap.
In fact, he crossed the finish line less than a tenth ahead of teammate Lance Stroll in seventh, who had been bottled up behind Daniel Ricciardo before a controversial late move.
But reflecting on the pace Racing Point were able to show, the Canadian does wonder if Red Bull are in their sights.
“I really believe today we debatably had the second quickest car, maybe the third,’’ Stroll said.
“We were definitely quicker than Renault, McLaren and a lot of our other competitors so that was really positive.
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“It wasn’t the perfect race I think for both of us. I mean for Sergio starting 17th, that (sixth) was a pretty good result – you’d probably have signed up for that before the race.
“From my side, there were definitely some frustrating parts to the race – getting stuck behind Ricciardo. The pace was there all race which is what is promising moving forward.’’
And the performance of the so-called ‘Pink Mercedes’ has certainly got the attention of Red Bull boss Christian Horner.
“I think everybody should be worried by the Racing Point,” he said. “I mean, he was quicker than a Mercedes, Perez, at that point in the race.
“Bearing in mind that Bottas was on tyres that were within one lap of age to the Racing Point, Perez was three or four tenths quicker. So it was very impressive pace that they showed.
“I think Alex [Albon] drove incredibly well to keep him behind, but also, if you look at Alex’s pace on that tyre versus Bottas, there was encouragement that we could take from that in a car that wasn’t carrying any damage.”
After the race, however, Renault finally followed through on their threat to protest the Racing Point cars, under the belief that its design might just to be too close to last year’s Mercedes to be legal.
And indeed, the FIA has since impounded the front and rear brake ducts of the RP20 and asked the Brackley-based team to produce the same parts from the W10.