Racing Point should be back to competing at its previous best level in the 2020 F1 season, according to CEO Otmar Szafnauer.

The team has endured major disruptions during the past two championships. It went into administration in the middle of 2018, putting its future in doubt. Its assets were bought by a consortium headed by billionaire Lawrence Stroll, who has invested in the team, but the episode delayed development work on its 2019 chassis.

However Racing Point made steady progress throughout last year. Szafnauer said the team “kept pace and out-developed” their rivals “a little bit, but not by enough” during 2019.

“At the beginning of the year we weren’t getting into Q3 at all,” he said. “[Later] almost every race we got a chance to make Q3. Sometimes we got it, sometimes we didn’t, we were right around there, and at the beginning we struggled to get out of Q1 if you remember those races.

“So we did out-develop some of the people in the midfield. But you can’t double their development rate because if you were to do that then within three years you’d be well past them. So it’s a tough thing once you start.”

Szafnauer believes they should begin the new season in better shape.

“Now the winter months give you a big opportunity to out-develop. Things change over the winter months, especially if there’s a regulation change, which we had last year – over the winter we had a regulation change with no ability to develop, which is what got us to where we did at the start of the season. That’s not the case this year.”

The team has hired new staff, brought workers from different sites together so they can work more efficiently and upgraded its systems. Szafnauer expects they will be a stronger force in the midfield this year.

“There are no excuses if we’re not performing to the level that we’ve been used to performing,” he said. “We should be the sharp end of the midfield.”

The team finished fourth in the championship in 2016 and 2017, as Force India, before it was hit by financial problems related to previous owner Vijay Mallya.

Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free

2020 F1 season