All change
‘The risk was basically to tear up what we’ve done in the past few years and start again from scratch’
One of the major technical talking points of the 2020 grid has been Racing Point’s so-called ‘Pink Mercedes’. The team’s RP20 model was attributed this nickname at preseason testing because it appeared to be the doppelganger of last year’s Mercedes W10. But surely copying another team’s concept requires minimal expertise, and is therefore of little interest to Racecar Engineering? Not quite: The transformation from Racing Point’s traditional car concept to that of the more modern Mercedes-esque solution marks the team’s biggest engineering challenge to date.
The Silverstone-based team has been through many iterations. Starting off as Jordan Grand Prix in 1991, the team was then sold to Midland in 2005. Racing one year under the Jordan name and another as MF1 Racing, it then became Spyker in 2007, followed by Force India in 2008 and then Racing Point 10 years later.
This was the team’s biggest engineering challenge to date
Often regarded as the underdogs of the pit lane, the team became renowned as the most ‘efficient’ in F1, scoring the highest number of points per pound spent in 2015 and 2016 when it finished fourth in the Constructors’ Championship. However, since dodging administration in the summer of 2018, the team has struggled to recapture its former success, finishing seventh in the Constructors’ Championship in the last two seasons.
‘We have tried many avenues with the old [car] concept to try and make an inroad into
