Andrew Green, the Technical Director of the Racing Point F1 Team, believes the criticisms and complaints aimed at the team following the development of the RP20 ahead of the 2020 Formula 1 season are born because other teams have not been able to do a good enough job improving their own challengers.
Many eyes were raised when Racing Point unveiled their car ahead of pre-season testing, with the chassis looking much alike to the Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team’s W10 from 2019, a car that took Lewis Hamilton to his sixth World Drivers’ Championship.
However, Green has defended their design process, and feels the comments criticising the car are unjustified, and Racing Point have stepped up to the plate whereas other teams have not.
“I think [complaints from other teams] boil down to the fact that some of the teams may not have done as good a job as they should have done, and I think we’re probably seeing that,” Green is quoted as saying by Formula1.com.
“We’ve a team that finished fourth two years on the trot [as Force India, in 2016 and 2017] with next to no money at all – we were absolutely hand to mouth – and we finished fourth in the championship, we beat the likes of McLaren, that was what we could do that with next to nothing.
“For people to think, to take a team like that and inject money and resources in it, and it wasn’t going to improve, was just naive. And I think they just haven’t stepped up to the plate.
“So I think a lot of their frustration is looking inwards: ‘Crikey, we haven’t done a very good job’ – that’s what I’d be I’d be thinking if I was looking from the outside in. I’d be looking at my own department: ‘C’mon guys what on earth have you been playing at?”
‘It Gives Us Encouragement that People are Talking About Us’
Racing Point have been helped ahead of 2020 by a cash injection of Lawrence Stroll, with the RP20 the first true car from the Silverstone-based team to be designed and taken on track since the Canadian businessman took over the ailing Sahara Force India F1 Team midway through 2018.
The 2019 car was massively behind schedule due to the monetary problems of the year before, so Green is happy that they have had the kind of budget where they have been able to design a brand new car that everyone hopes can propel them to the next level.
“It’s something we’ve been wanting to do for a very long time and hadn’t had the budget to do,” said Green. “This is a 100% natural thing for us to do.
“It gives us encouragement that people are talking about us, complaining about us. That is a good indication to me that we’re doing something good. If we were at the bottom of the pack, nobody would be mentioning what we’ve done.”
