Another strong day for Formula One team Racing Point and Sergio Perez

Racing Point

Another strong day for Racing Point and Sergio Perez

'Don't even look at the timing' warns Perez

Sam Hall

Thursday 20 February 2020 19:19

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Sergio Perez climbs a spot from third on Wednesday to second position on Thursday in pre-season testing, his time only bested by a late effort from Kimi Raikkonen.

Racing Point have completely changed their design philosophy for the 2020 Formula One season. Opting to pursue a 'low-rake' concept, technical director Andrew Green said openly that the team took a risk in basing the design of the RP20 on photographs taken of Mercedes title winning W10 car.

"I hope it will perform like their car," said Perez. "It is still very early days and we have so many things to go through. A lot of work on our shoulders, all of the team is working flat out.

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"What is really good about this season is to finally have a car that is going to be very close to what we have in Melbourne, so that's a very positive thing. We can focus and learn so much compared to other seasons where we were always late with our car.

"Today we are on the right track and definitely the car has potential so hopefully we can start strong."

Racing Point defend RP20 similarities to the Mercedes W10Read more

Driver Perez has so far enjoyed the performance of the RP20 and, while he agrees that such a change in design was a risk, he hopes the rewards will follow.

Perez added, "It is [a risk] because after so many year you are used to your design, and to change that dramatically, your car is changing quite a lot. The way it operates is very different, so it's a huge risk but I think it's worth taking it."

Something often said during testing is 'don't read into the timesheets'. This phrase is often ignored and, whilst having been comfortably in the top three on both days of running so far, Perez issued a familiar warning.

"In testing, you don't even look at the timing," said the Mexican. "Ten kilos of fuel is three tenths and you can be at 100kg or you can be at 5kg, so it's a lot of time to try to figure out, but the most important thing is that our car is performing well."