Racing Point is focusing on ‘best of the rest’ and even the odd podium with their mostly new 2020 car.
On Monday, the Silverstone-based squad revealed their pinkest livery yet at a launch in Mondsee, Austria, the hometown of new title sponsor BWT.
But actually, Formula 1 is yet to see the car itself and with this being the first design fully created under the ownership of Lawrence Stroll, when it is revealed at the start of testing on Wednesday, we should expect plenty of changes.
“Even though we have more stable regulations for this season, much of the RP20 is new and has a distinct visual difference to its 2019 predecessor,” CEO Otmar Szafnauer said via RaceFans.
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“We’ve always been an ambitious team and, with continual investment in infrastructure, we now have a better in-house capacity.
“As such, our expectations are much higher – especially since 2019 was compromised by the hangovers of the previous season and transition of ownership.
“Following the changes of the last 12 months, we’re no longer held back by some of our old constraints, allowing us to improve performance with efficiency – something that has always been a strength of ours.”
It wasn’t so long ago that Racing Point, under their former guise, dominated F1’s midfield, finishing fourth in both 2016 and 2017.
And returning to those heights is the team’s ambition for this season.
“This year we want to be a strong fourth, we want to be closer to the top three than we have ever been,” Szafnauer continued.
“It’s always difficult to make predictions this early in the year but firstly we need to start this season at a much higher level than we did in 2019 and that means right from the first test in Barcelona this week.”
As for driver Lance Stroll, his eyes are set even higher, believing the team can return to the podium for the first time since Sergio Perez finished third in Baku in 2018.
“Very achievable, this sport’s full of surprises,” the Canadian said during Monday’s launch.
“We’ll try and be there in the right position when the opportunity comes and capitalise on it, that’s the nature of the sport.
“Anything can happen on any given Sunday so we’ll just focus on Melbourne and it’s a long season, it’s a marathon, so try and score as many points as we can and hopefully a podium in there somewhere.”
