Racing Point, formerly known as Force India, will reveal a new name and their 2019 Formula 1 car at the Canadian International Autoshow in February.
The Silverstone-based outfit was given a new lease of life after being taken over by billionaire businessman Lawrence Stroll this past summer, following a period of financial problems brought on under Vijay Mallya.
And though Racing Point was the name under which a new entry was lodged following the change in ownership, it has been confirmed that will not be the official name of the F1 team.
That, along with their car, will be unveiled in Toronto on February 13th, just four days ahead of the first pre-season test in Barcelona.
Lance Stroll has now followed his father from Williams to Racing Point and will partner Sergio Perez, who starts his sixth season with the outfit.
Both drivers will look to lead the team back to the ‘best of the rest’ position they lost to Renault in 2018 and potentially, thanks to their new investment, begin closing the gap to the top three.
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Certainly, it’s a significant turnaround in expectations compared to this past year with team boss Otmar Szafnauer reflecting on the issues they faced.
“It was a season where eventually our performance was pretty good,” he said.
“It started off slow because of our financial lows, then the administration process was also disruptive, as you can imagine, and full of anxiety and uncertainty.”
After it was all resolved, however…
“We brought an upgrade to Singapore, which worked well,” he added. “But that upgrade should have been on the car around Spa, if not Hungary.
“[If so, it] probably would have allowed another upgrade to come in Singapore, so we were like one upgrade behind but it is what it is.”
Eventually, they would end the year seventh in the Constructors’ standings with only their points from Spa counting, combined Force India and Racing Point would have beaten Haas to fifth.
