Racing Point have the funding to bring upgrades at every race

Racing Point Team Principal Otmar Szafnauer revealed that the team now has enough financial backing to be able to bring upgrades for their cars along to each race this year.

Before Force India was taken over and renamed Racing Point last year it was stuck financially, restricting the amount of parts they were able to produce and upgrade for the cars.
 
A consortium led by Canadian billionaire Lawrence Stroll, father of driver Lance Stroll, took the team over and now have given them an opportunity to run a full upgrade programme for this year.
 
Szafnauer expects there to be a tough midfield for 2019 and believes the ability to upgrade will help put them in the mix.
 
Speaking at the F1 season launch event he said: “[We’ve got] a little bit more money which will help us with the developments this year.
 
“It's going to be really tough in the midfield. It will be a development race.
 
“Luckily, we've got the funding behind us to bring upgrades to every race, including [Australia].
 
“Winter testing saw us achieve our main objectives and we took away a lot of positives, but the car you will see in Melbourne is quite different from the car we ran in Barcelona.

“We took the strategic decision to give ourselves the maximum time to develop the car, to maximise our performance at the first race, and that meant holding back a little during testing.

“It’s not easy introducing new parts late in the day and we know it will be a steep learning curve, but we believe this approach will pay off in the long run.”

Sergio Perez is one of the few parts of the team that has remained the same during the takeover and the increased funding has given him hope and confidence for the upcoming season.
 
Perez said: “Expectations are very high.
 
“We want to start the season on a really good basis, score good points. I think if we're able to score good points on Sunday, it will be a very good start for us.”