In the round-up: Pierre Gasly believes Racing Point have pulled away from the midfield with their new RP20.
What they say
Gasly said AlphaTauri have no upgrade this weekend, so their car feels much the same as in pre-season testing:
It’s pretty much where we where we ended up in Barcelona. We came here with no upgrades, so same cars as Barcelona. We are facing the same balance issues we had in winter testing. So now it’s just trying to find a way to extract the maximum from the car we have. And then we’ll see where it puts us. But I think we saw Racing Point are no more in the midfield and McLaren and Renault are really fast as well. So there is quite a lot of work on our side.
Quotes: Dieter Rencken
Snapshot
Penske’s Will Power took pole position at Indianapolis Motor Speedway grand prix course for the second round of the 2020 IndyCar series this weekend. He’ll share the front row of the grid with Jack Harvey. McLaren SP rookie Oliver Askew took an impressive fifth behind Colton Herta and Graham Rahal.
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Social media
Notable posts from Twitter, Instagram and more:
|@RGrosjean was startled by the speed when he got back behind the wheel of his @HaasF1Team for the first time in four months. #F1 #AustrianGP pic.twitter.com/z6beKQPzTy
— RaceFans (@racefansdotnet) July 3, 2020
- Find more official F1 accounts to follow in the F1 Twitter Directory
Links
More motor racing links of interest:
Jimmie Johnson reports positive COVID-19 test (NASCAR)
"Seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson has reported a positive COVID-19 test, Hendrick Motorsports announced Friday evening."
Nasr to miss Daytona after testing positive for COVID-19 (Sportscar 365)
"Action Express Racing has confirmed that its driver Felipe Nasr will miss this weekend’s IMSA 240 at Daytona after testing positive for COVID-19."
McLaren rise from nadir ready to win friends and influence F1 races (The Guardian)
"Altering the internal politics of the team was key. 'It wasn’t any one person, it was the environment,' he adds. 'People felt there would be retribution if they spoke up, a fear culture. Now if we make a mistake, we make a mistake as a team and say: ‘Let’s understand it, let’s fix it.’'"
We always endeavour to credit original sources. If you have a tip for a link to feature in the next RaceFans round-up please send it in via the contact form.
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Comment of the day
Will Racing Point be as quick today as they were yesterday?
It is surprising to see that Mercedes 2019 car is faster than everyone else’s 2020 car – pretty embarrassing for the rest of the field. We all knew Mercedes would easily cruise to another title this year but I hoped some of the others would at least be on pace with their old car. Sadly not.
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juan fanger (@juan-fanger)
4th July 2020, 1:41
High-rake or low-rake?
The verdict is in.
ruliemaulana (@ruliemaulana)
4th July 2020, 2:18
This is beautiful headline. I hope Stroll can get a podium or two.
Jere (@jerejj)
4th July 2020, 7:44
@ruliemaulana If that proves to be true when it matters.
Jere (@jerejj)
4th July 2020, 7:41
Although I already responded to the COTD in a separate article here it is again in a bit different wording:
I don’t really understand why people still think it’d be the actual W10 even though it isn’t as customer-cars have been banned in F1 for more than ten years now. It merely looks like it to some extent from the outside, but is a full RP-car rather than handed out to them by another team.
Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
4th July 2020, 8:47
@jerejj because it is a handed down mercedes. As Martin Brundle put it “RP has covered itself on that end(…)” Everyone knows that the “copied from pictures” story is bogus, just for legal reasons. Everyone is copying mercedes but whilst it is easy to copy the outside it is hard to build the exact same car, that is why several teams had problems crash testing merc style noses, like mclaren and renault. Don’t you think that any struggling team would not rather copy the aero design from the top team than be 3 secs away?
Jere (@jerejj)
4th July 2020, 9:15
@peartree Yes, but the point is that it is an RP-car outright, and they merely made it look as similar as possible from the outside.
Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
4th July 2020, 13:00
@jerejj no it isn’t that is the point. @paeschli the alphatauri is effectively last years red bull, the teams share technologies and have done so for a while and you simply cannot prove what they end up sharing and what not, we are not inside, and if you have anything against good luck, as you are probably running their engine or you can’t outvote them, hence why mclaren and williams. I can’t understand how even though it has been established that the RP and alpha are 99% last years cars, some people haven’t got it. fom has made fancy side by sides, the f1 channels have extensively covered this, other team principals have had their say. For legal reasons, both copied the cars not to be taken at face value.
Illusive (@illusive)
4th July 2020, 11:00
They were copying Redbull cars before this, nobody noticed this because of the nose.
Patrick (@paeschli)
4th July 2020, 12:20
What are you suggesting @peartree , that Mercedes breached the rules by giving confidential information to RP? What do they stand to gain from that? It’s probably not worth it giving the huge risks if anyone finds out.
RL
4th July 2020, 13:56
If Mercedes are going to remain at the front, I hope at least Ferrari are shaken up by Stroll Money, Mclaren and Renault.