76 GP RACING MARCH 2020
is in a Portakabin. Thatis set to changein th e
coming months as a new facilitytakes shapeon
neighbouring land. There have also been several
strategichires in the technicaldepartment.
But adding people andinfrastructuredoesn’t
guarantee success. Renaulthas invested heavily
in staff andfacilities at its Enstone base and,
although itfi nished fourth inthe constructors’
championship in 2018, in 2019it fell away again
rather than achieving itsgoal ofconsolidating
fourth and gettingsubstantiallycloser to the top
three on raw pace. The comparison is significant
because Otmar says“closing thegap to the top
three” is oneof Ra cing Point’starget s this season.
“It’s not an easything to do,” he says.“Over the
winter you’ve gottwo forcesto deal with, really.
One is the fact that those guys [thetop three] still
have the bi ggest amount of resource and have
the infrastructure in place to out-developus. But
the other force, which isin our favour,is that the
regulationsaren ’t changing. Usually when those
don’t change, the big teams have foundthe gains
early on while wefi nd the gainslater. Thatmeans
we have an opportunity now to catch up. But it’sstill hard when they [Mercedes] have1100 people
and we have465. Are we twice as smart?No...”
But severalother teams, such as Renault and
McLaren, havebeen infl ux over the pastfew
seasons,with restructure after restructure. What
Racing Point does havein it s favour is a settled
technical team– a remarkable achievementgiven
how close the whole operation came to going
bust before theStroll consortium’stakeover.
It’s a cr edit to Szafnauer andtechnicaldirector
Andy Green’s powers of persuasion thatso many
talentedengineers stayed loyalwhen other teams
swoopedin t o pick at the carcass.
“That [cont inuity]helps,” says Szafnauer.
“We’ve added some senior personnelfrom other
teams.When Lawrence and theconsortium took
over we were at 405people. We’ve added60and
some of them were to help the development cycle
happe n quicker – thefaster you put parts on the
car and analyse them, the sooner you get an idea
of whatthe next thing is. Speedingthat process
up was a key ambition. And we’ve added senior
technicalpeople who bring thei r own ideas and
creativity about how to make thecar go faster.“So we’vegrown, but Istill think we’rethe
second smallest.”
The effectsof th at investment are showing
already.Gree n describes theRP20 car as “entirely
new” and designed“from scratch... whichis
very exciting, becausethe team hasn’t been ina
position to do thisina very longtime.”
Before it can continue raisingits engineering
headcountthough, Racing Pointfaces the
additional burden this season of organisinga
factorymove – all the w hile balancingin-season
development with theshift to 2021research.
The new building won’t just be a chang e ofsc ene,
it representsa change in culture for a teamwhich
has tradit ionally outsourcedits production.
Tight fi nances under theprevious ownership
often caused bottlenecksin development since
outsidesuppliers would naturally refuse to
undertakefurther work until outstanding bills
were paid. Thatmanifesteditself in aero research
missingsteps because new components never
made it to the autoclave, let alone theracet rack.
Building morecomponentsin-house could–
should– yield a better development trajectory.
“We want to co ntrol our own destiny in terms
of the timing of puttingthings onthe car,”says
Szafnauer. “Getting everyone under one roof is
also important interms of co mmunication – if
you communicate better you make few er mistakes
and things happen quicker.We’ ll have the
simulatorint here, all the designers,the machine“WHEN THE REGULATIONS DON’T CHANGE, THE BIG TEAMS HAVE FOUND THE
GAINS EARLY ON WHILE WEFIND THE GAINS LATER. THAT MEANS WE HAVE
AN OPPORTUNITY NOWTO CATCH UP ”OTMAR SZAFNAUER
202 0 SEASON PREVIEW
76 GP RACING MARCH 2020
is in a Portakabin. Thatis set to changein th e
coming months as a new facilitytakes shapeon
neighbouring land. There have also been several
strategichires in the technicaldepartment.
But adding people andinfrastructuredoesn’t
guarantee success. Renaulthas invested heavily
in staff andfacilities at its Enstone base and,
although itfi nished fourth inthe constructors’
championship in 2018, in 2019it fell away again
rather than achieving itsgoal ofconsolidating
fourth and gettingsubstantiallycloser to the top
three on raw pace. The comparison is significant
because Otmar says“closing thegap to the top
three” is oneof Ra cing Point’starget s this season.
“It’s not an easything to do,” he says.“Over the
winter you’ve gottwo forcesto deal with, really.
One is the fact that those guys [thetop three] still
have the bi ggest amount of resource and have
the infrastructure in place to out-developus. But
the other force, which isin our favour,is that the
regulationsaren ’t changing. Usually when those
don’t change, the big teams have foundthe gains
early on while wefi nd the gainslater. Thatmeans
we have an opportunity now to catch up. But it’sstill hard when they [Mercedes] have1100 people
and we have465. Are we twice as smart?No...”
But severalother teams, such as Renault and
McLaren, havebeen infl ux over the pastfew
seasons,with restructure after restructure. What
Racing Point does havein it s favour is a settled
technical team– a remarkable achievementgiven
how close the whole operation came to going
bust before theStroll consortium’stakeover.
It’s a cr edit to Szafnauer andtechnicaldirector
Andy Green’s powers of persuasion thatso many
talentedengineers stayed loyalwhen other teams
swoopedin t o pick at the carcass.
“That [cont inuity]helps,” says Szafnauer.
“We’ve added some senior personnelfrom other
teams.When Lawrence and theconsortium took
over we were at 405people. We’ve added60and
some of them were to help the development cycle
happe n quicker – thefaster you put parts on the
car and analyse them, the sooner you get an idea
of whatthe next thing is. Speedingthat process
up was a key ambition. And we’ve added senior
technicalpeople who bring thei r own ideas and
creativity about how to make thecar go faster.“So we’vegrown, but Istill think we’rethe
second smallest.”
The effectsof th at investment are showing
already.Gree n describes theRP20 car as “entirely
new” and designed“from scratch... whichis
very exciting, becausethe team hasn’t been ina
position to do thisina very longtime.”
Before it can continue raisingits engineering
headcountthough, Racing Pointfaces the
additional burden this season of organisinga
factorymove – all the w hile balancingin-season
development with theshift to 2021research.
The new building won’t just be a chang e ofsc ene,
it representsa change in culture for a teamwhich
has tradit ionally outsourcedits production.
Tight fi nances under theprevious ownership
often caused bottlenecksin development since
outsidesuppliers would naturally refuse to
undertakefurther work until outstanding bills
were paid. Thatmanifesteditself in aero research
missingsteps because new components never
made it to the autoclave, let alone theracet rack.
Building morecomponentsin-house could–
should– yield a better development trajectory.
“We want to co ntrol our own destiny in terms
of the timing of puttingthings onthe car,”says
Szafnauer. “Getting everyone under one roof is
also important interms of co mmunication – if
you communicate better you make few er mistakes
and things happen quicker.We’ ll have the
simulatorint here, all the designers,the machine“WHEN THE REGULATIONS DON’T CHANGE, THE BIG TEAMS HAVE FOUND THE
GAINS EARLY ON WHILE WEFIND THE GAINS LATER. THAT MEANS WE HAVE
AN OPPORTUNITY NOWTO CATCH UP ”OTMAR SZAFNAUER
202 0 SEASON PREVIEW