Spyker B-Spec set for Istanbul
August 10th 2007 00:44
Spyker’s chief technical officer, Mike Gascoyne is confident that the car will improve the Dutch team’s competitiveness, but stopped short of predicting points.
"Aerodynamically, it's worth about three quarters of a second," Gascoyne told Autosport.
"Mechanically, we're expecting a good step forward. But if you look at recent grands prix, that only really closes the gap to Toro Rosso. But at some circuits, it will be closer,” said the Englishman.
"But rather than being a big step in itself, rather it's the first step in the process - there will be further updates coming,” he said.
Gascoyne, 44, a well-respected designer in F1, joined Spyker late last year after he was let go from Toyota following a dispute with the Japanese car-making giant’s boardroom.
Previously Gascoyne had worked for McLaren, Tyrell, Sauber, Jordan and was one of the main architects behind Renault’s eventually rise to glory in 2005.
But now the man nicknamed the ‘bulldog’ faces one of his career’s toughest challenges in guiding the ambitious, but modestly budgeted Spyker outfit to success.
"We've just switched on our wind tunnel in Brackley - and that was meant to happen six to eight weeks ago,” conceded Gascoyne, “that has limited the progress we've made with the B-spec car.”
"So it's not as much of a step forward as we aimed for initially but you'll see updates coming throughout the rest of the season,” he said.
“It won't suddenly mean we're a point-scoring team,” he said, “but it's the start of the process which means by this time next year we will."
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