Racing Point building reputation as ‘Best of the Rest’

The BWT Racing Point team, partnered by Acronis, is rapidly building a reputation as ‘best of the rest’ in the pecking order behind the mighty Mercedes AMG F1 Team.

After a strong start to the season at the Red Bull Ring in Austria, Lance Stroll and Sergio Perez qualified on the second row of the grid ahead of both Red Bulls and Ferraris for the Hungarian Grand Prix. And Although Max Verstappen managed to get between them in the race, Canadian Stroll can rightly be happy with his fourth placed finish.

“I’m really happy with P4: it’s a good result and I have to thank the team for such a great job today and all weekend,” said Stroll in his team’s post-race press release. “It was fun to fight Max [Verstappen] at the start of the race and run in P2 in the changeable conditions. We actually ended up in quite a lonely race to P4, but the main thing is that we were able to score a good haul of points for the team, and so did Checo.

“It was such a complex race and I’m looking forward to reviewing it and learning what we can for the races to come. We’ve had three races now and looked strong in all of them. I think the podium was close today because we were in a big battle with Bottas and maybe we could have done things differently, but you can always say that after the race. That’s racing and we’ve got to be happy with fourth.”

🇭🇺 That's a wrap from Hungary, we hope you enjoyed it as much as we did, and we'll see you in two week's time at Silverstone! 🇬🇧#HungarianGP #F1 pic.twitter.com/trULEEaQHE

— BWT Racing Point F1 Team (@RacingPointF1) July 19, 2020

For Perez, who qualified fourth on the grid, the race was more of an uphill struggle after a slow get away cost the Mexican a bunch of places at the start.

“It was a shame about my start,” explained Perez. “I just picked up a lot of wheelspin in the first phase and that cost us a lot of positions. It’s always tricky to recover at the Hungaroring, but we tried our best and I had some good battles. I had a few adventures out there too and I ran wide – in the dry – and was lucky not to touch the wall.

“When I did get some clean air, I could show the pace of the car, but the time I lost on lap one was costly. The main thing is that we’ve scored more points for the team and are now just behind third place in the Constructors’ Championship.”

The team now has a two week break before racing resumes with another double-header at Silverstone, where the team has its home base and where the Acronis Mission Control Centre is located, helping out the team with data analysis.

“The 18 points scored consolidate our fourth place in the championship and we’re actually tied on 40 points with the third-placed team,” added Otmar Szafnauer, team principal. “This result is an important reward for the entire team’s efforts – both here in Budapest and back home in the UK.”

Yes guys!!! P4!!! 🤜🤛 pic.twitter.com/Vf7finPAXs

— Lance Stroll (@lance_stroll) July 19, 2020