Alfa Romeo and Renault have finally lifted the covers from their cars for 2020.
It now means that every team has revealed its car for this upcoming season as pre-season testing now gets underway in Barcelona.
Renault will be hoping to bounce back from a disappointing season and re-claim fourth in the constructor’s championship and in attempt to do so, they have gone for a different approach heading into this year.
Team Principal Cyril Abiteboul said: “This year we decided to take a bit of a different approach.
Renault’s testing livery on track. Photograph: Renault.
“The regulations are stable, so it was offering a fantastic opportunity to keep some elements of the car that have no direct responsibility towards the performance of the car.
“It doesn’t mean that it is the same car – it would not look very attractive. But what we have decided to do is focus on performance areas and by doing that, you also work towards 2021.
“If you can be focused on 2020 then you have some extra capacity available for 2021. That is the logic behind what we have done – whether it works or not let’s see in Melbourne on the Saturday.”
Meanwhile Alfa Romeo, who finished eighth in 2019, have released a similar look to last season for one which could see one of their drivers, Kimi Raikkonen, become the most experienced in Formula One history.
He said: “It’s obviously not as big a team as where I used to be [Ferrari] but it’s a nice group of people and they’re working nicely together.
Photograph: Alfa Romeo.
“We know we have some areas where we can’t match the big teams but we try to do the best with what we have and it didn’t really end up last year where we wanted but we had a really good first half of the season, then we struggled a bit… we can learn from last year’s difficulties and hopefully we don’t repeat it this year.”
Raikkonen is currently second on the all-time list for most grand prix entries, eleven behind Rubens Barrichello, and should he complete the season then the record will belong to the 2007 Formula One World Champion.
By Edward Hardy
