Racing Point team boss Otmar Szafnauer unconcerned by the prospect of being hit by a protest of its controversial RP20 'pink Mercedes'.
Racing Point's 2020 contender raised more than a few eyebrows when it was rolled out at the start of pre-season testing for its uncanny resemblance to last year's all conquering Mercedes W10.
Designer Andy Green and his team of engineers had undoubtedly taken their cue from the winning Silver Arrows, although Green insisted the car was fully designed and produced in house.
However, the RP20's strong pace as showcased this weekend in Austria has revived the spectre of a post-race protest from one of Racing Point's midfield rivals. But Szafnauer is unperturbed by the prospect.
"It shouldn’t be a surprise that the car is quick, we’re using the Mercedes windtunnel which is probably the best tool in the business, they’ve got great correlation, which means the efficiency of the tunnel is quite high," justified the Racing Point team boss.
"We took the opportunity this year because of our stronger financial situation to depart from a high-rake concept that we got inspiration from Red Bull on.
"We were always compromised when we’re buying the powertrain from Mercedes, including the gearbox.
"They design their powertrain and gearbox to run a different aerodynamic concept than what we were running, and therefore that high-rake concept that was so well developed by Red Bull would only work so much for us.
"We took the opportunity this year to get rid of that compromise. It would only make sense to have a look at what Mercedes were doing if that’s the kind of concept we’re going to, and it worked out."
Last winter, Renault F1 boss Cyril Abiteboul equated the RP20 to forged artwork. But in Austria, the Frenchman gave no indication that a protest from his team was potentially in the works.
"I think it will be interesting to see the lap time, because there has been lots of speculation based on winter testing," Abiteboul told Motorsport.com. "And as we all know that is very difficult to say anything from winter tests.
"This week is back to racing. We will finally have an idea of the respective competitiveness.
"If Racing Point complies with the regulations, then they have nothing to worry about obviously. But again, back to racing is the priority number one for this weekend."
McLaren F1 boss Andreas Seidl dismissed a protest, believing there was no grounds for a complaint.
"On our side, there is absolutely no intention to launch any protest because I think also there’s no grounds for that," said the German.
"In the end, Mercedes and Racing Point have chosen to go down this route, which to be honest I think there is also room in the regulations to do what they did."
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