The "borderline outrageous" car that could change F1 forever

Racing Point hoped it would be good, but deep down it probably never expected its 'Pink Mercedes' to be this good.

Everyone had come into this year expecting Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull to be mixing it up at the front and maintaining their membership of F1's previously exclusive Class A group. At best, it was thought that a team like Racing Point or McLaren might just be able to bridge the gulf that had emerged in recent years between the top three and the chasing pack.

But no one could have predicted just how fast the RP20 was going to be. And certainly not that we were going to have weekends when it was quite clearly the second fastest car.

Sure, Racing Point may have been flattered a bit by Red Bull and Ferrari having their own wobbles and falling back into the pack, but it has achieved a level of progress that few teams have ever made in such a short space of time. Its fastest qualifying lap at the Hungaroring last week was 2.732 seconds quicker than it managed last year. Don't forget this is a year of stable rules and same tyres.

• Racing Point controversy rumbles on
• Racing Point: Rival F1 teams missed out not copying Mercedes design philosophy
• Brawn: Racing Point F1 protest "tricky problem" for FIA to resolve
• Impossible for Racing Point F1 brake ducts to be illegal, says Szafnauer
• Renault lodges second F1 protest against Racing Point brake ducts
• Racing Point F1 team is a "race winning contender" in 2020, says Wolff
• Renault: Racing Point protest is about defining F1's future team model

For Racing Point it's a hugely encouraging start and, from its perspective, proof that the only thing that has held it back over the years is money. As team principal Otmar Szafnauer said: "I think the thing that's special about us is we've always had a talented bunch of individuals that were really held back by lack of funding.

"We've been wanting to do this kind of thing for a long time, but really never had the money to follow the best team in F1. If you remember, we were the first to put a double diffuser on our car in 2009, when the three teams came out with a double diffuser. I think we were even ahead of Red Bull.

"So, we've always had talented individuals that 1) understand racing and 2) understand how to develop a car, and also are followers and looking to see what's out there, and then adapting it ourselves."

The impact of what Racing Point has done goes far beyond just the confines of its Silverstone factory though. Its philosophy has become a test case for the very future direction of Formula 1, and whether the sport wants the 10 best teams slugging it out for glory, or just a few teams working together as tribes.

In basic terms, if copying the best car on the grid can instantly deliver you a bunch of seconds per lap, then why throw millions of man hours into your own bespoke design that may only bring you a few tenths?

"The Mercedes is a go-anywhere package. However they do it, it is phenomenal and their pace here is just borderline outrageous compared to the rest of the field" Dave Robson

The temptation to go down the clone route is increased greatly, though, when F1 is in a scenario where the current benchmark car, the Mercedes, is so far ahead of the opposition.

While the current chassis freeze, and looming move to new era rules in 2022, means no one can do a Racing Point right now; it is clear that it will become an avenue that all teams must consider if its current form continues.

Last weekend I asked Williams' head of vehicle performance Dave Robson if, had we been in a normal year, Racing Point's form would have forced others teams to become copycats if they were creating a new car for 2021.

"I think potentially you would have to think about," he replied. "It is clear that for quite a few years, Mercedes has been the standout car, even though the Red Bull and Ferrari at times have excelled at certain circuits.

"The Mercedes is a go-anywhere package. However they do it, it is phenomenal and their pace here is just borderline outrageous compared to the rest of the field. When you look at the harsh reality of that, and you look at the way Racing Point have been able to do it, then you would have to give it a serious go I think. If there is that much lap time to be found and that is the way to find it, I think you would have to follow that route."

Where would such a stampede to copy have stopped? Would all the non-manufacturer teams have been forced to go down that route or face relegation to the back of the field?

And where would it have left a manufacturer like Renault, or the big-money independent like Red Bull? Would they have been able to plough on and do their own thing, or would they too be forced to rip up their business model and become a clone team themselves?

It is no wonder then that Red Bull boss Christian Horner admitted that the decision the FIA makes over the Racing Point brake ducts - which will lay out how far designs can come from the same origins - is an important one for where F1 goes from here.

"It's a holistic position that needs to be clarified because obviously there's an awful lot of re-creation going on at the moment: as we've seen with the Racing Point and Mercedes," he said. "I think it just needs to be answered: is that acceptable moving forward? Is it not?

"I think that's fundamental, you know, because if it is, then I'm sure teams will converge. If it isn't, teams will have to operate independently. So that's sort of a bigger picture question for the promoter and for the FIA."

Copying rivals has been the name of the game in F1 for years. Innovation and clever design ideas are pounced upon by rivals, who pore over pictures of other cars they've been sent by their secret photographers, to work out what they are up to and how fast they can introduce their own versions.

PLUS: Why F1 has always been a "copying championship"

Where the Racing Point situation is different is that it had relied upon a level of cooperation between the two teams to make it so effective. It has needed Racing Point to buy the rear suspension and gearbox (a key area of car performance now). Plus, in making use of the same Mercedes windtunnel, it has access to the same numbers, computers and feedback as the factory team.

Key to delivering a working 'clone' is not in understanding what the parts should looks like. It is in understanding of why parts work and why they have been created in a certain way. As Robson said: "It's always been the case that copying is an important part of the game we play. The difficulty is that these cars are so complicated that what you really need to be able to copy is the concept.

"So if you can take all those pictures and watch all the video footage and understand how and why the Mercedes works, then you can make that work yourself. Some parts of what it does are quite obvious in terms of its choices on ride heights, and you can see some of the key bits of the aero surfaces.

"If you can copy all of those and understand how they work and make them work on your own car then fair play. I don't see any problem with that. I think that's all part of the game and they have done an exceptionally good job of that."

For F1, the decision needs to be made on how far cooperation can go: and how things can be policed properly to ensure that there is zero risk of IP being passed across.

Rightly or wrongly, the door is ajar right now on F1 accepting clone cars and teams working together as the way forward. The imminent decision on the Racing Point brake ducts will define whether it is slammed shut or it opens even further

After all, what's to stop all the windtunnel data from the works team being accidentally left on a computer screen so it can be read by the cloning team to know what targets they need to reach? Or what is there to prevent a windtunnel model being accidentally left out to help make copying it - and replicating what it is doing - much easier?

Rightly or wrongly, the door is ajar right now on F1 accepting clone cars and teams working together as the way forward. The imminent decision on the Racing Point brake ducts will define whether it is slammed shut or it opens even further. It is an outcome that will decide if F1's future is one of teams working alone for their own success; or one of alliances between manufacturers and satellite operations.

Ultimately, it is a decision that could leave everyone other than the world champion being forced to decide whether they become a full blown copycat or try to succeed by themselves.

But based on the 'borderline outrageous' speed of the Mercedes, and how Racing Point have executed it, right now there would appear to be only one route that really makes sense.