'Fast Racing Point takes shine away from performance Mercedes and Hamilton'
Interview
- GPblog.com
Racing Point has been showing a fast car right from the start of the season. This is probably because it is a copy of the Mercedes. It seems a matter of time before Sergio Perez and Lance Stroll take podiums. But what does that speed actually say about Mercedes and Hamilton? Jan Lammers does have an opinion about that.
"That takes away a lot of the shine from Mercedes and the drivers," he says in conversation with GPblog.com. "If you see that Stroll is nine tenths behind Hamilton and you say that the Mercedes of 2020 is half a second faster than the one of 2019, Stroll is about four tenths slower than Hamilton purely on driving".
"You're wondering, then, how good was Hamilton's performance? And in the case of Bottas, how bad does it have to be to not get a second place with a car like that? Stroll did well, but then you also see that a lesser driver with a good car comes much closer to the limit".
Racing Point is only going to get stronger
Meanwhile, it is mainly the other teams that fall victim to the lightning-fast pink cars. Where at the beginning of the season they were still expected to be faster than Ferrari, Red Bull Racing must now also be careful.
"Racing Point is taking this experience back to the next race, so I expect them to get stronger, rather than shit together. Renault is protesting now, but I could imagine a protest from Red Bull even more. Because where they used to beat two Mercedes, they now have to beat four".
However, Lammers seems unlikely that the Racing Point will be declared illegal. In that case, Formula 1 will suddenly lose a whole team for this season, as it will be difficult to build a new car. With that, the sport would shoot itself in the foot. According to him it is a difficult situation where F1 is now in.