Racing Point has confirmed their participation at the start of pre-season testing on Monday is in doubt.
The Silverstone-based team might have revealed a new-look car on Wednesday in Canada, but in reality, it was simply last year’s chassis fitted with 2019-spec wings.
That has been true for several outfits that have also already conducted ‘launches’, including Williams, Renault and Haas. All of which used updated versions of their 2018 cars.
In the past day alone, Williams has had to cancel a planned shakedown to try and ensure their readiness while Renault may also have to abandon an early run in Spain on Saturday for the same reason.
And now Racing Point technical chief Andrew Green has confirmed: “We will be there, but we do not guarantee that we will be on the track on Monday. Our preparation is far from over.”
The British designer also explained at the launch that 2019 will be about a rapid development with the RP19.
“Expect quite a plain, ‘vanilla’ car to start with as we produced what we believe is a car capable of delivering what we need to achieve in Barcelona – working on reliability and understanding the tyres,” he explained.
“We are planning to update the car for the first race and probably the two or three races after that.
“They’ll be fairly significant changes ahead of another big step forward in Barcelona, in race five. Hopefully, by the time we get to Europe, we will have a decent platform to be working with and developing.
“This year, we will be bringing updates to the car as soon as they’re ready. We won’t be waiting to put together bigger packages, but will focus on making incremental gains at every race.”
All three teams have blamed the late change in aero regulations for their last-minute dash, yet Red Bull, Mercedes, Toro Rosso and now Alfa Romeo have all conducted filming days this week.