17/06/2020
NEWS STORY
Racing Point team boss, Otmar Szafnauer has confirmed that construction of the team's new factory has been delayed due to the coronavirus.
Shortly after Lawrence Stroll bought the Silverstone-based outfit, it was announced that a new factory was to be built, with completion scheduled for mid-2021.
However, the coronavirus pandemic means that construction has been delayed, with the factory now expected to be up and running in summer 2022.
"We were on a tight timeframe anyway," Szafnauer tells the F1 Nation podcast. "We had to break ground in the first quarter of this year to be able to finish and move in, in August 2021.
"Well, first quarter of this year, we were in complete lockdown, nobody was working," he continues. "We couldn't get anyone to progress the factory, so it was put on hold.
"When we looked at the situation, it only made sense to move it by a whole year to August 2022, because that August break is a perfect time to move factories for us without disrupting the rest of the organisation and what it's really here to do, which isn't to move factories, but to go racing at a competitive level."
Explaining the need for a new factory - the original having been built for Jordan - Szafnauer said: "You've got to remember, the factory we have now was built in the late Eighties. I think it was built for 150 people.
"We're bursting at the seams, and because we're bursting at the seams, we have pockets of engineers working in different locations.
"It's worthwhile building a new factory, getting everybody under one roof," he added. "Our simulators are in a different location now, our wind tunnel is in a different location, the model-makers are in a different location... it's just not as efficient.
"We're going to become Aston Martin soon, we've got the land, and it would be nice to have an Aston Martin Formula 1 Team campus. Not just us, but some of the road car designers and engineers as well on campus with us."