Racing Point: ‘Naive’ F1 rivals have nothing to complain about

Racing Point Formula 1 team technical director Andy Green says he does not understand why its midfield rivals are complaining about its design concept for the 2020 season.

The Silverstone-based outfit enjoyed a strong pre-season testing programme and grabbed the attention of rival teams when its Mercedes-inspired RP20 challenger broke cover in Barcelona.

Racing Point has attempted to replicate the aerodynamic philosophy of the 2019 title-winning Mercedes W10 with its latest F1 car, an controversial approach which has caused a stir among its closest rivals, prompting suggestions of a possible protest.

“I don’t know what they’ve got to complain about,” Green said.

“What we’ve done is completely legal, what we’ve done is racing with the rules that are written. That’s the idea of the game, you are given a set of rules and you go as fast as you can.

“That’s what we’re doing. If other teams haven’t taken the route that we’ve taken for reasons unknown to us, then that’s their decision. They had the same opportunity to do exactly what we did but they elected not to, for reasons I don’t know.

“It’s something that we’ve been wanting to do for a very long time and haven’t had the budget to do,” he added. “This was the natural thing for us to do, absolutely 100 percent.

“It gives me encouragement that people are talking about us and people are complaining about us. That’s a good indication to me that we are doing something really good so I’m happy.

“If we were at the bottom of the pack no one would even be mentioning what we’ve done, at all.”

Sergio Perez described Racing Point's RP20 as the best car he has ever driven in his career after the team regularly towards the top of the timesheets throughout testing. 

Green said he was “very surprised” more teams had not followed Racing Point’s approach for 2020 and believes much of its rivals frustrations stems from not doing a good enough job themselves.

“I think [the criticism] comes down to the fact that some of the teams have not done as good a job as they should have done,” he explained.

“We’re a team that has finished fourth two years on the trot with next to no money at all, we were hand-to-mouth and we finished fourth in the championship. We beat the likes of McLaren, we could do that with next to nothing.

“For people to think to take a team like that and inject money and resource into it and it wasn’t going to improve, I think that’s naive. I think they just haven’t stepped up to the plate.

“I think a lot of their frustration is looking inwards and probably going ‘crikey, we haven’t done a very good job’. That’s the way I would be looking from the outside in. I’d be looking at my aero department and going ‘come on guys, what an earth have you been playing at?’”