It’s been a turbulent year for Force India, now Racing Point after going into administration and being taken over by a consortium led by Lawrence Stroll and it’s now been revealed the team missed out on a full upgrade in 2018 because of their financial difficulties.
In the first half of the season, the team lacked the funds to build the upgrades despite already designing them.
Although everything started moving more smoothly under Otmar Szafnauer - who became team principal during the reorganisation he admitted to Autosport they never really got back up to speed in 2018.
"We brought an upgrade to Singapore, which worked well," Szafnauer told Autosport.
"But that upgrade should have been on the car around Spa, if not Hungary - which probably would have allowed another upgrade to come in Singapore.
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"So we were like one upgrade behind. But it is what it is."
Following the takeover process, the constructors were wiped of all their points but still managed to get back up to seventh under the new ownership.
"It was a season where eventually our performance was pretty good," said Szafnauer.
"It started off slow because of our financial lows.
"And then the administration process was also disruptive, as you can imagine, and full of anxiety and uncertainty.
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"Now we've settled down and hope to continue next year where we ended this year, in a pretty good place."
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Japanese Grand Prix
Overview
Friday 27.03.26
Practice 1
02:30 AM
Practice 2
06:00 AM
Saturday 28.03.26
Practice 3
02:30 AM
Qualification
06:00 AM
Sunday 29.03.26
Race
05:00 AM
Friday 27.03.26
Practice 1
Fri 02:30 AM
Practice 2
Fri 06:00 AM
Saturday 28.03.26
Practice 3
Sat 02:30 AM
Qualification
Sat 06:00 AM
Sunday 29.03.26
Race
Sun 05:00 AM
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|---|---|---|---|
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