After Renault launched a protest against Racing Point RP20 after the Styrian Grand Prix last weekend, both Lance Stroll and Sergio Perez worked hard to make their challenger legal for 2020.
The controversial “pink Mercedes” from Racing Point has already caused a lot of grumbling in the midfield this year because it resembles last year’s Mercedes W10. But Renault was the first team to officially protest against it last Sunday. The protest was quickly considered allowable by the stewards who ordered the RP20’s front and rear brake lines to be seized – and asked Mercedes to deliver the corresponding parts of the W10 for comparison.
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When Lance Stroll spoke in Hungary on Thursday, he returned to the protest and said he was confident that the team would defend the car.
“We have all the evidence that our car is legal,” said Stroll. “It’s all part of the F1 circus, I think, but the good thing is that after everything I’ve heard, we can prove that we’re legal.
“It is disappointing that we have to see this protest and all the drama at the beginning of the season,” he added. “However, I am 100% convinced that our car is legal and that our boys will take care of it. I am pretty positive from everything I have heard.”
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Stroll’s teammate Sergio Perez went so far as to admit the similarity in the design of the RP20 to last year’s Mercedes – but also added his belief that the car was “100% legal”.
“First of all, I want to pay massive tribute to the entire factory, to everyone who works at home, even on the side of the road,” said Perez. “You have done an excellent job and I firmly believe that our car is 100% legal.
“We can’t hide that it looks a lot like the Mercedes car,” he added, “but the most important thing for me is that we don’t honor the boys, that they did an excellent job in the factory … We did we did very well with minimal resources and it was the logical step for the team to do so [performance is] will go up. “
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Both Racing Point and Renault will now have to wait for the FIA technical department to complete their investigation into the legality of the car, which is related to Appendix 6 of the Sports Regulations regarding the use of “listed parts” by the teams. Stroll emphasized the word “constructed” and praised his team’s hard work in developing the RP20.
“Andrew Green [Racing Point Technical Director] and everyone in the factory did a great job building this car, and nobody can take that away from us, ”said Stroll. “It is natural that there will be some protests and bad ideas about how we made this car, but frankly the guys in the factory just did a great job, and so it is.”
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