Racing Point team principal Otmar Szafnauer expects the team to make a significant step forward with its last major upgrade of the season at next week’s Singapore Grand Prix.

Szafnauer said at Monza he believes the upgrade will help sustain the team’s recent upward swing.

“We expected to be good at Spa, which happened,” he said. “We expected to be good here. And we also expect to be pretty good in Singapore.”

Although next week’s race marks a change from high-speed circuits to one of the slowest on the calendar, Szafnauer said the team will have “some tricks up our sleeve in Singapore”.

The RP19 will have a “big update”, he confirmed, which is mainly intended “to fix some of the aero issues with the car.” Racing Point brought a major upgrade earlier in the season in Spain but were disappointed with the outcome.

Szafnauer hopes the Singapore upgrade will prove a turning point. “From there on out just learn about the car, get the set-up right, hopefully we’ll be at the top of the midfield where we’re used to being and I would say we belong.”

The team’s development this year has been affected by a “lag” due to its financial problems during 2018, said Szafnauer.

“Last year when we were struggling, it always has a little impact on your development: What you do, how you go about working. Especially mid-year. Like now for example, this year’s done and it has been done from a CFD [and wind] tunnel perspective for a while.

“So in that time where you have a lot of uncertainty it has an impact on the following year. There’s always a lag between what you do today and when you see it on the track, both positive and negative. So I think some of the things we struggled with at the beginning were a legacy of what happened to us mid-year last year.”

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2019 F1 season