Racing Point sees £10 million of potential savings for teams
Racing Point team boss Otmar Szafnauer believes teams could save up to £10 million in 2021 if key components are carried over to next season.
Faced with a massive revenue shortfall due to the coronavirus pandemic which has put the 2020 campaign on hold, Formula 1 has delayed next year's scheduled regulation overhaul to 2022 and extended the use of this year's chassis designs into 2021.
The move will compress costs for the sport's constituents, but Szafnauer believes more savings can be achieved if additional components are given a longer lease of life.
"We once took an old chassis three times into the next season," the Racing Point boss told Auto Motor und Sport. "And not only that, in the difficult years, the suspensions and transmission also stayed the same."
Szafnauer, who manages the most efficient team on the grid when it comes to costs, gives the lowdown on the level of savings that could be realized by carrying over elements into the next season.
"By keeping the old chassis, you save up to a million and a half pounds. If you add the gearbox and crash structures, the savings can be between three and five million."
Add wheel hubs, suspensions and cooling systems to the mix and the savings become quite significant.
"If you drive the maximum program, up to £ 10m is possible," added Szafnauer.
Formula 1 has already agreed to add additional components to its 2021 list, but the final index of homologated parts will likely depend on the number of races the sport manages to undertake in this disrupted year.
The fewer the races, the more parts could be carried over to 2021, with the added benefit of a reduced cost for Racing Point which procures its gearbox, wheels hubs and suspension elements from Mercedes.
"Mercedes also benefits when they don't have to design new parts," noted Szafnauer.
©RacingPoint
Racing Point's current inventory of spare parts is enough to cover ten races.
"If we order for ten more, we could save some inventory for next year, but only if the parts are homologated," said the American.
With the season in flux, the team's 2020 development program has also ground to a halt.
"It would be the stupidest thing to start the wind tunnel now and continue developing blindly," Szafnauer stressed. " We don't even know how our first upgrade ^for Melbourne] would have worked."
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