New upgrades aim to bring 'balance' to Racing Point

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SportPesa Racing Point has brought a significant package of upgrades to the German Grand Prix which aim to bring some much needed additional balance to the RP19.

Sergio Perez indicated that the new parts were just the first step in improving the performance of the car, with more upgrades due for the race in Hungary the following week.

"We're trying to bring balance to the car, to try to cure some of the deficits in terms of balance," Perez told the media on Thursday.

"We hope that this first step can bring us a bit of that," he added. "Rear end mainly. You're going to see some bits on the car, all around.

SportPesa gives Racing Point drivers an extra boost of motivation

“We’re getting something more for Hungary, so for the time being – for the moment – we are focusing on the new package that we have here."

Perez said that the upgrades were to the sidepods, floor and "other stuff" including moving the internal cooling systems to the top of the engine cover in a similar fashion to changes at Red Bull.

"We hope we can make a good step forward and that can bring a bit more balance to the car," he explained. "Something that we’ve been missing in the last couple of races.

"We are in a critical part of the season where we definitely need to make a step to be more regularly able to score points."

He admitted that the team simply hadn't kept pace with their rivals when it came to in-season development. "We didn't improve enough, and probably some other teams did improve more since [Barcelona], that has been the real issue."

Perez himself has failed to score any points since Baku, while team mate Lance Stroll last finished in the top ten at his home race in Canada. As a result, Racing Point has dropped to seventh place in the constructors standings, equal on points with Toro Rosso.

However Perez pointed out that he had been unlucky not to score points last time out at Silverstone. He had been running as high as eighth place before a steering wheel issue caused him to run into Nico Hulkenberg during a restart.

“I think we were very unlucky that day," Perez said. "We did everything perfect from our side, we definitely deserved the points that we were going to score. In the end they didn’t come, but we definitely deserved those."

Whether Perez will remain at Racing Point beyond the end of the current season is still to be decided, although he indicated that there might be news on that subject next month.

"It’s only two weeks from summer break so I think during summer break I will know exactly what my plans are going to be," he suggested. "I hope I come back from summer break with my future resolved."

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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.