Racing Point confident of best-ever F1 finish if “bad luck” ends

The Racing Point Formula 1 team believes it can hold onto third place in the constructors’ championship if it evades further “bad luck” before the end of the year. 

Despite picking up a 15-point penalty for breaching design rules with its rear brake ducts, Racing Point currently leads the way in a titanic battle over third place in the 2020 championship standings, four points clear of nearest rivals McLaren and six ahead of Renault. 

The Silverstone outfit has often boasted the fastest car of the midfield with its controversial RP20 challenger, though unlike McLaren and Renault, it is yet to score a podium this year.  

Nevertheless, Racing Point will secure a best-ever finish of P3 providing it can maintain its slender advantage for the rest of the season. 

Asked what is needed to tip the balance in Racing Point’s favour, technical director Andrew Green replied: “To stop getting a lot of bad luck, to start with. 

“We just don’t seem to be getting the run of the green at the moment. I just want a normal race weekend, and we haven’t had a normal race weekend probably since race one of this season. 

“Something happens every weekend, and all we need between now and the end of the season is just to have normal race weekends, where we can just race the car, set it up normally, just have a normal weekend without any major distractions. That will give us our best possible opportunity. 

“We’ve had one of those so far this year, so that’s going to make the difference for us. If we have that, then I think we really can challenge for third. We really can. 

“It’s going to be a real battle. There’s three teams there, we’re just swapping places all the time. It’s going to be good fun to the end of the season.” 

With F1 heading to three unusual venues and a new circuit configuration in Bahrain during the final six races of the season, Green hopes Racing Point’s ability to “hit the ground running” on race weekends will benefit the team.

“With the circuits that are coming up, there’s quite a good range of variability, we got some new ones coming up as well,” he explained. 

“So I think the ability for teams to hit the ground running in places like Imola, Portimao is going to be important. I think we’re quite good at that, I think we’ve got a good simulator programme back at the factory which can bring the drivers up to speed very quickly. 

“I think our tyre understanding is very good so we know what to do there. Those are two tracks we know about, then we got the Bahrain outer circuit, so that’s going to be an interesting one. That’s going to be a bit of a roll of the dice. It’s going to be very different from the normal circuit. 

“So, I think a lot of it is going to be the ability to adapt and get a good Sunday afternoon set-up. I think we’ve shown that if we get it right on a Sunday afternoon, you rattle out in pace order. That’s what we need to focus on.”