Driver shake-up adds 'new dynamic' to Racing Point - Szafnauer

40

Racing Point principal Otmar Szafnauer is happy with the way that his team is settling into the 2019 season with Lance Stroll joining the squad alongside Sergio Perez.

That's despite a subdued start to their campaign which seems them tied in eighth place in the standings with Toro Rosso, on just three points after the opening two races of the year.

Stroll was the team's stand-out in Melbourne with ninth place, while Perez picked up a top te finish last weekend in Bahrain. Szafnauer said he was happy with how the pair were coming together as team mates.

Perez hopes Bahrain was as bad as it gets for Racing Point

"It’s different for many reasons, but it’s very good," he insisted this week. "They share work together, try to get the best out of the car."

In the past two seasons, Racing Point had their hands full coping with driver rivalries between Perez and Esteban Ocon.

Although the team was criticised for dropping Ocon in 2019 for Stroll, Szafnauer is confident that it's the right move and that Stroll is already meeting their expectations.

"He’s good," said Szafnauer. "He’s young, he’s 20 years old. With a couple of years he’ll only get better and better at this.

"We can teach him some stuff," he added. "And it’s one of those things where with experience you learn.

"He’s very good, very talented. Great feedback, knows what he likes with the car. And he’s a good driver.

"It is a different dynamic. It’s good."

Stroll joined the team from Williams over the winter, after his father - billionaire Canadian businessman Lawrence Stroll - let a consortium that saved the former Force India squad from administration last July.

Now a veteran of 43 Grand Prix races since his début in 2017, Stroll found memorable early success in Baku that year when he claimed his first and to date sole podium position in just his eighth outing.

Ocon meanwhile has now taken up a post as reserve driver at Mercedes, meaning that he missed out on racing this season but is first in the queue to take over from Valtteri Bottas in 2020 if the team is looking to shake things up at Brackley.

Gallery: The beautiful wives and girlfriends of F1 drivers

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter

Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.