Spyker ready to 'embarrass' rivals
Spyker are now on the verge of causing an 'embarrassment' for some of the manufacturer teams, reckons technical chief Mike Gascoyne after their best race of the season in Belgium
Adrian Sutil made the most of the team's new B-spec car to battle strongly in the midfield for much of the race at Spa-Francorchamps on Sunday.
And it is that performance that has left Gascoyne convinced the team are ready to put some pressure on their much bigger-budgeted manufacturer rivals.
"We introduced the B-spec at Monza, where it was always going to be difficult and Adrian will accept that he didn't have a great weekend there," Gascoyne told autosport.com.
"But here at Spa it clearly gave us the jump we wanted. We thought we were about seven to eight tenths off the pack in front, and that is what we expected the car to bring. And sure enough, in qualifying and race pace that is what we showed.
"It's very pleasing. And it's just the start of the process. We had a lot less resource to develop this car than we wanted, and a lot less time in the wind tunnel.
"But between now and the start of next year, we're going to have a lot more resources and time, and I think we can embarrass some people."
Gascoyne believes the team's decision to start the race on softs had also played a key part in allowing Sutil to make such swift progress up the field in the early stages.
"It was exactly the right thing to do," he said. "We had a new set of softs, as we'd bothered to save a set because we thought we might get into Q2. And with good straightline speed, we knew they could give you the confidence to go flat through Eau Rouge, and that was the plan.
"I think Adrian out-dragged three or four cars on the opening lap up there. If he could have just got David Coulthard, the strategy would have really worked and we would have made up two or three extra places."
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