Racing Point RP19 Launch
The new Sport Persa Racing Point F1 team that has morphed out of the administration chaos of last year revealed their new name, title sponsor and RP19 livery at an impressive launch ceremony in Canada.
‘In years passed we’ve had financial pressures, those pressures have lifted thanks to the consortium and all our sponsors and partners. But now we have other pressures and those are to perform at an even higher level than before,’ highlights Otmar Szafnauer, Team Principal and CEO at Sport Persa Racing Point. ‘We have performed well with the resources that we have had, but now resources over time will increase and we are all focused on developing our track performance to get closer to those top three teams.’
The 2019 season really does signify a new era for this team as new investment is not only helping to expand the current factory, but also build a new facility, also in Silverstone. This is to accommodate the growing workforce as not a single member of the team left during the administration process which just shows the passion and dedication underpinning this little team.
Only high res renderings of the Racing Point RP19 were released. Although, we cannot deduce too much accurate technical detail from these, particularly as significant changes are expected for the first few opening rounds of the Championship, when the impact of the new investment will start to come into fruition.
Despite the positive new direction of the team, the administration last year has unfortunately affected this year’s car design. Key decisions for 2019 had to be made whilst the team struggled for funding and so the RP19 is very similar to that of last year’s car.
‘The new car uses certain parts and assemblies from last year’s car and the 2018 chassis has been modified to suit, so it needed to be re-homologated,’ highlights Andrew Green, Technical Director. ‘This was one of the big decisions we had to take early on, back in July when the team’s future was still uncertain. We had to find the most cost-effective way to keep development running throughout last year and decisions were made to use as much of the 2018 car as we possibly could. What we had to avoid was stopping development for two months while we waited to understand what the future held, as that would have been a significant blow to our 2019 competitiveness. Looking back, we know it was a good call.’
The front wing is similar to that of the other renderings released. Five closed main elements, along with simplified endplates as specified by the regulations. ‘The modifications to the front wing alone have had a big impact, as they affect the aerodynamic performance of the whole car: when changes are made to something at the front, everything downstream is affected,’ highlights Green. ‘There are also significant new regulations for the front brake ducts and the rear wing as well, so overall the 2019 car has required a lot of optimisation and re-design work. Ultimately we may struggle to find out if these new rules improve the racing and unfortunately I don’t think they will help close the grid up, but what we know from looking at our data is that they produce a significant loss of performance, one we are still fighting to recover.’
Of course with new investment, comes new resource to bring new parts to the track. ‘We are already looking beyond our testing-spec car, actually: we’re planning what to bring to the first race, what to bring to round five in Barcelona and what we should be looking at as we develop this package, something we’ve been unable to do previously,’ says Green.
These upgrades will start coning into force at the first round of the Championship, in Australia. But for the pre-season tests, the Racing Point RP19 will be ‘quite a plain vanilla car’ that will focus on reliability and understanding the tyres. ‘We are planning to update the car for the first race and probably the two or three races after that,’ highlights Green. ‘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.’
F1 is a cruel game and the fact that Racing Point has not only managed to survive administration, but come out the other side with new title sponsors, new money and the same dedicated workforce is astonishing. ‘It’s the most exciting time for the team and the vision the shareholders have for the company is incredible,’ concludes Green. ‘This isn’t just a new chapter, this is a completely new book.’
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