Otmar Szafnauer: 'We want to be a strong fourth'

Racing Point CEO Otmar Szafnauer has made a bold statement for the 2020 season claiming “both of them will be on the podium at least once drinking the champagne.”

Speaking at the launch of their new car for the 2020 season, the team director seemed to be confident of his team and his racers.

Racing Point lift the covers off the RP20See Racing Points Car for the 2020 season.Read more

Drivers Lance Stroll and Sergio Perez have got experience of landing in podium positions before.

The Canadian has had a taste of a podium finish back in Azerbaijan in 2017 when racing for Williams.

Meanwhile Mexican counter-part Perez has also been up on stage on multiple occasions coming in second place twice.

Whilst then the immediate reaction of Szafnauer may be of surprise and could be ignored by many there could be some shock results this season.

Though it seems that Racing Point have set themselves some high ambitions for the new F1 season.

“This year we want to be a strong fourth, we want to be closer to the top three than we have ever been.”

A tall order, given that Racing point had ten times less points than winners Mercedes in the Constructors Championship, with Perez just sneaking into the top ten of the Drivers Championship.

Szafnauer also took a bit of a jibe at rival Romain Grosjean, suggesting his driving can lead to surprises “ Sometimes on lap one you don’t know what’s going to happen, Grosjean’s still racing but he could run into you, you never know.”

Whether they can pull off a more consistent season this year will have to be seen and if so, could they be the team to cuase a few upsets?

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