Swipe at Racing Point? "The last thing you want to do is copying your neighbour"
F1 News
- Nicolás Quarles van Ufford
McLaren technical director James Key has explained "the last thing you want to do" as a team is to copy another team's ideas as this means by default you are chasing them, adding any constructor should look to out-develop the rest of the field.
A lot has been made of Racing Point's 2020 challenger, the RP20, as it looks awfully similar to Mercedes' championship-winning W10 from 2019. Racing Point are projected to be leading the midfield, at least for the start of the season, with their estimated pace even close to Ferrari's.
Meanwhile, McLaren will not resort to anything like this as they continue to develop their way closer to the top three teams. As Key explains, copying a competitor only means you can never beat them.
“The last thing you want to do is copying your neighbour because you want to be out-developing him with better ideas,” the Brit was quoted by Crash.net last Friday at the second test in Barcelona.
“The pictures [of Racing Point] tell the stories of these things and there’s been a lot of discussion, but from our side we are much more concentrated on ourselves.
“Of course we have got to keep an eye on the competition and we can see Racing Point has clearly taken an enormous leap in performance, think we’d been silly not to recognise that and acknowledge it."
McLaren will be defending its midfield title, running away with fourth place in 2019, but will have fierce competition from Racing Point's so-called 'Pink Mercedes'. Key added he will be more than up for the challenge, saying engineers are just as competitive as the drivers inside the cockpit.
“From an engineering point of view as an engineer you want to go out and beat everyone else, that’s what motivates most people. Engineers are competitive people, we are, certainly when you work in F1, and you’re always up against competition from a company or another team.
“What makes F1 unique is it’s teams versus teams as well as drivers versus drivers. And as an engineer you want to be the best on the grid at your particular discipline, that’s what motivates a lot of people, it’s certainly what motivates me."
The estimation is Racing Point will be stronger at the start of the season in particular, but McLaren's bigger budget should allow the Woking-based side to develop the car better as the year progresses and catch up to their rivals.